iamshack

http://www.caiso.com/Documents/NVEnergyEnt...lanceMarket.pdf

QUOTE (LDF @ Nov 30, 2015 -> 09:59 AM) ok, i may not agree for this reason, at this point, if the sox can get out from under his contract, so much the better. even if the sox will pay, what, 3 mil of his salary. the risk is too much for me to accept that gamble. furthermore, even if he can hit a little better than last yr, no one can say his offensive stat will be his normal let alone above avg, something that i will need to see to accept. \ lastly, look at paulie last couple of yrs as a sox, loos at his stats. that is what i am expecting to see. and i hope i am wrong. Fair points, but the question of whether LaRoche's contract should be basically swallowed whole is directly linked to the competitive position of the team. If they don't make a number of other moves, it doesn't seem to be very wise to eat the money just to move him elsewhere. If they make some moves, such as acquiring another bat and making LaRoche's roster spot useless, then they can move him. There is a chance he bounces back and either gives us a much-needed bat, or else turns himself into a tradeable commodity in July. Bottom line is, with our current roster construction, there really isn't anyone he is taking PAs from, so we may as well pay him to play for us rather than someone else and hope he turns things around.

At this point I am inclined to keep him. This shouldn't be amongst the first moves we make...this move should be defined by the other moves we make.

After about 16 months on this project, at midnight pacific tonight, NV Energy will go live in the California Independent System Operator's Energy Imbalance Market. Been a lot of work...

QUOTE (Brian @ Nov 26, 2015 -> 04:47 PM) 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. What's to think about? Hmm...I would agree that generally this is a good sign...and then there is The Babadook. On another note, the wife and I watched Dallas Buyer's Club on Wednesday night. Wow.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 29, 2015 -> 07:50 AM) I was one hundred percent rooting for replay to overturn that TD. I knew thirty seconds was too much time left. As an objective observer, I thought it was the right call not to overturn it though. There was simply no way you could tell where the ball was at the moment he was down. The pendulum has swung a bit far with these replays. In retrospect, you are absolutely right. Notre Dame certainly could have benefitted from punching it in on a subsequent play.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 11:05 AM) yeah, really cool Trying to figure out how the hell to finish the outlets...

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 10:33 AM) so all you did was spray paint it gray? Yes, but it was very "expensive" spray paint

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 23, 2015 -> 10:24 AM) Love that backsplash thingy you have going there. I made pork chops in the broiler last night...oh man...6 minutes on each side and they were incredible. Damn oven was worth every penny

"Before" "After" Still some finishing work to be done, but this is probably what we'll go with heading into Thanksgiving.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 19, 2015 -> 10:21 AM) Ours is into the six figures for reno but we are changing the entire room line and whatnot so its a big project. This just adds a line item. I just want a flat top in the kitchen somewhere real bad. Rock, what are you looking at per sq/ft? I'm curious because next year we may have to make a decision between remodeling bathrooms or just adding on and reconfiguring the existing bathrooms.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 19, 2015 -> 07:49 AM) Yeah, there's a reason why our house had 13 showings in 3 days and had an offer for almost full asking price (which we thought was way too high!) with minimal contingencies in less than 5 days. Plus, you'll get to enjoy what I'm sure is a beautiful kitchen in the mean time. Agreed. I'm anxious to get an informal appraisal from my realtor. As for Jenks and his pink bathrooms, I have those too. Pink tile to about elbow height, with mirrors up the rest of the wall AND covering the ceilings. That is a project for next year Edit: Yeah, the Sugatsune pulls was just about me being anal. They actually tried to sell me something that was stainless steel plated (the Sugatsune pulls are all stainless steel) because in our climate you don't experience issues with the stainless plated hardware. For the amount of money we spent on the cabinets, it just seemed silly to cheap out on the pulls. But in retrospect, after handling them a bit, I am sure it wouldn't have mattered.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 19, 2015 -> 06:23 AM) I'm guessing your budget is pushing six figures? Those are not cheap appliances. I'm hesitant to buy the $2500 set for our new house. I think we're going to end up a shade over $70k. That was to completely gut the kitchen, as well as the floors in our dining room and laundry room and 1/2 bath. I think we ended up having about 650 sq ft of flooring installed. Porcelain tile floors (we had little choice because of our dogs). We had to upgrade all the electrical, move ventilation and install some additional ventilation for the new downdraft vent. Had stainless steel floor registers fabricated because we had to live with floor vents. Custom cabinets in the kitchen and laundry room, as well as one in the dining room. Sugatsune stainless steel pulls. Quartz countertops. Kohler sink and Grohe faucet. Inhabit architectural concrete tiles for the backsplash (the jury is still out a bit on how bright a choice this was). New kitchen table and chairs from Restoration Hardware. I busted my butt to find the best pricing on everything without compromising. But to keep things on a reasonable timeline, I am sure I overpaid some contractors due to not being able to get several quotes or because I had to select them based on their availability on not always price. All in all, we'll end up about 10% over budget but that was almost all driven by a huge overage caused by what we found when we started tearing up the floors. The appliances were the big splurge. Something I talked my wife into. She loves to cook and bake, and I wanted her to have the best we could afford. The last two years have included us buying our home, paying for a good portion of our wedding, having a child, moving my parents here (to a house which I purchased), and now this renovation. We haven't had time to take any vacations other than our honeymoon, and a lot of things have been sort of pushed to the back burner to accomplish these goals in a short matter of time. So I really wanted her to have something she could really enjoy. The other consideration was our property and location. As I mentioned a few weeks back, for the long-term value of our property, we felt we had to put in a "top of the line" type of kitchen. I understand that appliances don't necessarily add value to a property in and of themselves, but I do believe they help sell properties. We both work for a company which offers many opportunities elsewhere (Berkshire Hathaway), and so we always have to be on the ready in case something comes up. Having our house in order (literally) so we can maximize the value and minimize the time on the market is important to us retaining flexibility in our careers. Additionally, the type of buyer our property would cater to sort of demands these sort of upgrades. So...in the end, yes, we could have gone with GE Monogram, or even something like Thermadore, but I convinced her to splurge and so we did. And damn, are they nice

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 18, 2015 -> 11:43 AM) Well, Ive decided as part of my reno I am going to slip in a 48 inch wolf stove with a griddle. Why the f*** not. Rock, we went with all Wolf/Sub-Zero for our kitchen reno. We didn't have gas so I didn't get the pleasure of getting the beast that you are getting, but this stuff is pretty awesome. We got two built-in ovens, one is an M-series single oven and the other is the M-series convection steam oven. The regular oven is incredible...you basically tell it what you are cooking, and it will automatically select the temperature and time and oven position, etc. The steam oven is supposed to be incredible for cooking more healthy dishes, but is also amazing for leftovers. Haven't had much of a chance to use them yet, but they are pretty badass. Also got a magnetic induction cooktop and a 42-inch Sub-Zero fridge. An Asko dishwasher to top it off. Yes, we splurged, but I am happy to buy something made in the US. You have a problem? You talk to someone in Wisconsin, not someone in Bangladesh who knows nothing about the product. I would highly recommend it.

Or it means they are flexible, which is usually a good thing. There is nothing wrong with making decisions based upon what is available on the marketplace. In fact, that DOES make me excited.

In the home stretch. Trying to figure out some of the finishing details we have to deal with as a result of some things I didn't anticipate as a result of the demo. Happy to have all this almost over with, but stressing over some of these details.

Countertops were installed on Monday, appliances came in yesterday. Final electrical should be done Saturday. Backsplash install begins Saturday. Cabinet doors go on Monday. Almost to the finish line...

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 02:17 PM) Eh. I'm at a good rate so probably not. We gave up about a quarter point but refinanced from 30 to 20 years and ditched the PMI, so we figured what the heck.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 02:06 PM) Yeah I was trying to avoid going through our mortgage lender for that exact reason. Why would they want to appraise the house for more, resulting in them getting less money from me each month? Are you willing to go through a different lender and refinance?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 12:49 PM) Yes...this, if you are going to do it with your bank, you need to go through their process (and just pay whomever they would use anyway). If you go with someone else, the lender is still going to have to do an appraisal and will not rely on yours. Basically put, just paying for your own appraisal is pretty worthless (unless you just generally want to know what the value of your house is for some reason or are trying to at least push something along). Not like it used to be. Unless somehow laws in California around appraisals differ from Illinois (could be...hell if I know...but I thought all lenders went to this standard / were required after the housing mess). US Bank actually owns their own appraisal companies now. Interesting.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 10, 2015 -> 12:45 PM) Perhaps i'm reading more into what you and others are saying. If so, my bad. But I take that to mean you see significant improvement. Not marginal improvement, but a big step from last year. That's what I don't see. I see a team that went from embarrassingly bad at times last year to just being bad. I don't consider that being anything more than a marginal step when a lot of what happened last year was dysfunction off the field. I think any number of coaches could have come in here and gotten that marginal step simply by having a different voice. I'm not suggesting Fox, Gase & Co. are bad, or that they've failed. To me they've done what was expected as a bare minimum. I have no qualms with Pace. I think he's done a good job thus far. We'll see how the draft picks work out, but he, more so than Fox, makes me excited for the franchise. There will be a tipping point, IMHO, which they are approaching much more rapidly than I had thought possible. I think it will come next year. Then all of the sudden people will say where did this all come from? It will have come from what this staff has accomplished this year.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 11:19 AM) I had a great experience with PODs. Just planned it out properly and gave them all the info up front. They urge you to schedule the pickup day when you schedule the dropoff. Hell, they ask like 30 times. Yeah, they were much better when I spoke with them this summer than they were back in May of '13.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 09:15 AM) Good advice, we're going to have to figure out the timing and logistics for sure. Luckily, we should be closing on our sale right after the new year, so my wife will have two weeks off to pack prior to that. Did you have them take it to one of their facilities for temporary storage while you were between houses? Yes. We had just a long weekend type gap, so they kept it at their storage facility for 3 days or so and then re-delivered it. This was 2 years ago. I looked at using them when I moved my parents out here this summer and they seem to have improved their logistics quite a bit. My dad convinced me to use some other company called "U-Pack" because they were the cheapest, but that was a bad decision for a cross-country move. All kinds of crap was damaged because the freight trucks did not have soft suspensions.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 06:59 AM) I think it'll be yes and no with this one. Bigger house, much bigger piece of property (1 acre bordered by forest preserve on two sides). But we've completely renovated our entire house top to bottom, and the one we're hoping to buy will definitely need lots of updates over the years. Not in a "fixer upper" way, it's definitely livable, but I'm sure we'll eventually replace damn near everything like we did in our current house. We've already started a list of planned improvements so that we can prioritize what we want to do and when. But a house that is as nicely updated as our current one that's as large as our hopeful new one and on as much property would be at least $100k more, plus like I've said elsewhere we like doing that sort of stuff anyway. eta: what's going to suck the most is having to move twice. Our closing dates are separate by a couple of weeks right now, so we're considering getting one of those PODS containers instead of having to move it to our parents' houses and then to our new house. Either way, probably stuck living at the in-laws for a couple of weeks, but they've got plenty of space and we all get along. Word of advice: NEVER EVER USE PUBLIC STORAGE BUILDINGS FOR ANYTHING YOU CARE ABOUT. My brother does a lot of contract work for those types of places. They flood frequently, often from sprinklers breaking, and you're basically completely SOL. Absolute last resort, and if you do, make sure you raise anything important off the ground and cover it in tarps/plastic sheeting. SS, just a word of advice here: I was dealing with the exact situation when I sold my last home. I used Pods and they came and dropped off the Pod and we filled it with all our things. MAKE SURE YOU SCHEDULE THE DATE FOR THEM TO PICK IT UP PRIOR TO THEM DROPPING IT OFF AT YOUR CURRENT HOUSE. These idiots didn't bother to tell me there was a several week lead time needed to schedule the pickup of my Pod prior to dropping it off. My house was scheduled to close on May 31st or something and they were saying they couldn't get it til June 7th or something. I was like "Do you not understand I will no longer own the property upon which your Pod (and all my belongings) sit after May 31st? I had to call a million people and run things up the chain to someone who finally arranged for the thing to be picked up prior to the closing date of the property. It was an absolute nightmare.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 08:26 AM) Yeah I need an appraiser, someone to tell the bank the value has gone up and we're beyond that 20% mark. 1) If your sole purpose is to remove the PMI, contact your mortgage lender and explain this. They will explain to you what the process is for doing so. They will only use certain appraisals, so don't go get one on your own; ask them how the process works and follow it. Generally, if you agree to refinance your loan (and pay them closing costs) the process is more forgiving than if you simply want to remove the PMI. They are crooks. 2) If you'd like to refinance and take some cash out, sometimes the lender will actually pay for the appraisal themselves. We did this for our kitchen remodel. We went to US Bank, and they paid for not one, but two appraisals. They will ask you what renovations you have done since you bought the house. Make a list of anything you have done and give it to them when they arrive. You can also provide them comps, although they won't necessarily consider them.