W2 - Wendy to the Second Power

I still use a macintosh G4 tower in my home office. The Safari browser has been limping along, pretty much broken down on YouTube & wouldn't let me access Facebook & crashed several times a day (and people do NOT try to make their sites backwards compatible anymore, yo!) -- so I had Bryan my handy mac guru come out and upgrade. I'm on a new version of Leopard, some directory things that were broken are now fixed, and so...

I can watch THE DAILY SHOW and THE COLBERT REPORT! Whenever I want, right on my mac! And re-watch episodes of 30ROCK and pick up on some weird & very funny offhand comments and bits of business in the background. It's like it's 2009 all up in here!

Because I'd protested my taxes before, I knew to come to the Travis County Tax Assessor's office ready. It's a stuffy, crowded space and they make you wait even when you have a scheduled pre-hearing. So, a light, summery dress, sandals and a book. Sure enough, there were about 30 people crammed in a hallway and my hearing was 45 min late.

The young man was nice who reviewed my case. When I explained I lived, not just on the edge, but at the corner/tip of a nice neighborhood with a fast drop-off in quality of homes behind and to the right of me, he allowed me to choose the streets for comparables. So that was easy to choose.

But then I noticed: all the sales he was showing me were from 2008. June, July, August. The most recent was Sep 2 2008. Maybe someone else wouldn't have noticed that, but the real estate market really started taking a dive in the fall. The prices now reflect the implosion finally getting to Austin.

So I asked for 2009 numbers. And he got a kind of odd look and said there weren't any. As in, no sales in my neighborhood in the past 8 months?? A day later and I now suspect that Travis CAD was chosing not to put the recent figures into their system on purpose, so they could argue the higher numbers.

I can't go for that. I'm doing the formal hearing next week. In the meantime, I've got to get a real estate agent to give me comparables from my neighborhood from the MLS database. The pre-hearing officer did offer to relook at my case if I emailed him something, but right now he only offered 3% less. As in, with Zillow showing N. Austin trended down by 16% in the past year, the tax appraisers will "only" raise my value by a positive 13%.

...uh, protesting!

Our housing appraisals arrived for most Austin homeowners this week. In these times of mortgage/housing crisis, how in the world could my home value go up by $26,000? That's at least 17% -- and the local economy isn't doing negative growth, but it is only limping along at 3-6%.

I protested formally 5 years ago, and they shut me down by showing me that a home three doors away had sold for a crazy high sum. Not a chance a house on my street could've gone for that. When I quizzed the tax appraisal person I found that:

• they base their appraisals on reports of sales
  
• the reports of sales are voluntary
  
• nobody audits the figures reported in any way
  
• they don't indicate the presence of additional goods or services in that one total figure.

So a person could offer to up the price of the home by $15,000 and include a new roof. Or $25,000 for a new roof and all new carpet. Those people suck. They're making the whole neighborhood pay higher taxes. Of course, the appraisal office sucks worse.

Where are the repugs coordinating marches to City Hall about this??

One (I'm in three!) of my screenwriting groups pressed me to join FaceBook since they created a discussion list over there. (sigh) Facebook doesn't play well with my mac Safari, so I have to launch ancient Netscape, and even then I get random scripts that won't run. But okay, I did join. BUT I consider LJ my blog/social site of choice, even though Russians own it now.

But now Facebook has undergone a Tsunami! I've had 12 friends find me just over the weekend, and another 3-4 people I don't recognize. I'm not a good candidate for those areas because I resent the amount of my life spent on the Web already, and how it sucks up time I need for writing and film-watching. And LJ is substantive usually, while Facebook stuff is often people just Tweeting. So I sign on, and interact, but feel like I've been absorbed by the social hive mind...

Reading this I feel chagrin. "Wah, wah, I'm popular!" Complainers never prosper.

So it's 5:30 pm and I haven't written yet, but I have been awesomely productive in Life this weekend:

• got groceries
  
• did laundry
  
• did a load of dishes
  
• worked out at the gym (hard, and don't feel sore!)
  
• bought yellow columbine (a shady flowering bush!) from the farmers market and planted them
  
• raked leaves in my backyard and bagged 4 bags (I'll do the rest another day)
  
• read the Sunday paper
  
• cooked a pot roast dinner in my crockpot (my first crockpot pot roast)
  
• made my reservation at the Outrigger Reef Hotel on Waikiki for the Hawaii Writers Conference (12 days at $158, yikes)
  
• met with my Austin Cats (Blake Snyder screenwriters group) for networking and analysis
  
• saw MONSTERS VERSUS ALIENS, in 3-D (cute but not great, and I will tell you why in a future post)
  
• scrubbed my shower stall with bleach
  
• redid my manicure and pedicure myself

I'm crusted with sweat and leaf mold and garden dirt right now, so the next activity is soaking in the whirlpool tub I was wise enough to add 4 months ago...

Yesterday I got early to work -- people even commented. But it was for a yucky reason: something awful happened to my next-door neighbor. I don't know what it is yet; from the three police cars, ambulance and fire engine that were parked in front of their house when I got up early yesterday, it should've been mentioned in the news. But I can't find it on any of the TV channel or radio sites.

It's a black family, very hard-working and polite. They have teenage kids who are popular, with lots of friends driving in and out during the evenings and weekends. I watched for a while and saw their two daughters, but not their son, so I kept getting ready for work. Then from my bedroom in the other side of the house I heard screaming. Loud and frantic screaming. I went out and saw the two girls trying to calm their mother who was rolling-on-the-ground hysterical, crying "my baby! my baby!" The police and EMS people kept trying to calm her, but her hysterics went on forever. The dad was talking with police and acting like he didn't even see it.

Then they put up crime scene tape. Awful. The house was quiet when I got home last night and there was a strong smell of bleach, which is ominous. This morning there are three strange cars there, so I'm guessing family members are showing up.

Supposedly you can call the Austin Police Dept, explain you're a neighbor, and they'll call you back with details... I'm going to try. I was looking at the APD crime Web page and it's a freaking nightmare of an interface that I can't get anything from.

Free music in Austin! I quit work at 5pm today and dined downstairs (like, in our own office building which has totally been built out now with restaraunts and retail) at Mama Fu's with NC's friends. Then we walked across the bridge to auditorium shores for the free SxSW concert. Up first: Bob Schneider! I love me some BobS, but I didn't actually get to see him. Heard the last few songs of his set as I stood in/near the long long loooooong line to get through security. So long that it wrapped around the side of the concert area and came halfway up Drake Street bridge!

Yeah, so I bailed once Bob was done, missing Raul Malo, the Arc Angels, etc. It was a long, exhausting week for me made extra awful by oak pollens that make me feel so slow, headachy and weepy. However, a shout-out to the weather gods who gave us dreamy warm weather in time for the festival. 80s and sunny, y'all!

There was a free SxSW concert on auditorium shores last night too, but I'd committed to doing the ASG Work Group meeting, held in a member's home north of Austin instead of Dominican Joe's, which was overrun with tourists. It was nice to see Kathy's lovely home in Pflugerville, but OMG. That was such a wasted evening. I think I gave some useful feedback on logic problems one must address in a "Born Free" story premise with clones. I got little to no feedback on my own script that related to anything I myself wrote. And then I missed 30ROCK for that!

Heard from my friends at Aether Paranormal that the production company I introduced them to is enthusiastic about creating a pitch package around them as a reality show. So cool! Shad came into our office wearing a TIE! OMG, our eyes popped out. "When have you EVER worn a tie before?" we asked. Turns out he did one time in July 2005. But each of the Aether Team members was making a 2-minute movie about their dayjobs and life outside paranormal investigations. Shad's was meant to point out how much more relaxed he was working from home than being in the office. And so I intruded myself on his clip with a goofy ad lib performance. I'm the obnoxious coworker who comes looking over his shoulder, startling him, and having a fit. "Oh man! Did you use purple on that?!" (he's doing desktop publishing of a marketing piece) "The execs hate purple! Gawwwhh!" (Cute touch, but, boy, I dislike seeing myself on camera.)

Next week or soon, as thanks for the help with Hollywood, Shad and the team plan to take me to Estancia Churrascaria -- the Brazilian all-you-can-eat steakhouse... W00t!

Tuesday my new sofa and loveseat arrived. Special order, green leather. For the first time in my life, I own reclining furniture... But classy! And it really is a comfortable set of furniture too. I had to sit on dozens of pieces to find it. For some reason, manufacturers make leather furniture with a very deep seat. Short people like me either perch at the edge of the cushions, or they scoot back with their legs sticking out straight in front of them. Not this furniture! But the smell of the chemicals in the dyeing of the leather is pretty awful, so I've been opening all my living room windows to air out while I'm home. And since I gave my perfectly fine if somewhat cat-mangled previous furniture to my brother, my living room had been pretty bare. Now it's furnished and comfy again.

I did get home last night in time to see most of President Obama's talk on Jay Leno. So smart! So charming! Explaining things so calmly. He and his Secy of Treasury inherited craziness and are doing such a responsible and focused job of putting out the fires and making changes. The idiots that have flamed him for creating a mess in his first 70-80 days in office? The media that reports every gaffe or stumble? Mostly the American public is ignoring them. Obama has a 65% or more approval rating in several polls. And the people in Europe are ecstatic about him. It feels so good to have someone in office I voted for. It feels even better that he's such a good guy!

Monday as I left for work, I saw some dampness and water trails coming from the hot water heater closet in my garage. But my work days have gotten beyond crazy busy again and I never called a plumber. When I got home that night, OMG, water was everywhere soaking stuff in my garage!

Almost exactly 8 years ago (only 3 years into living in the Prairie Henhouse) I'd replaced that thing! But with the hard water in Austin and my lack of ability in draining my hot water heater annually (it's got no latches on the closet, no handles on the spigots, so some of that isn't my fault), 7-8 years is the life of a water heater here.

Yikes, the plumbers had to pull and replace the appliance, pull out the whole closet and rebuild it with new wood, bring the whole thing up to code (dramatic stories about how & where explosions occur) and $1400 later it's fixed. Plus I made them spray all the wood support that stayed and the cement with bleach to kill mold.

I'm really allergic to mold. And last night for the first time in a long time I didn't toss and turn with allergy headaches. I woke up headache free! Now I've got to wonder: was that mold creeping in from the garage? Sure hope this a turn for the better. How awesome to sleep well almost every night!

Patrice had a party Saturday to celebrate her birthday (that part was kinda secret) and also the cover illo for her first novel --! A nice picture of a gray ("all light-colored horses are called grays") and its slinky female rider. The blurb promises "there's trouble, in both worlds" or something to that effect. Yay, Patrice!

J4 and jess_ka and several people from Cryptopolis were there. AllenW too, which made me happy because of the origin of the Cryptopolis group.

Sunday afternoon I meant to go to the matinee of TEETH, the vagina dentata movie that was filmed in Austin, in the neighborhood (off Cameron Rd) of my buddies Karen and Heinz. The folks from Texas F/X sent out an email that many local folks, some crew members, etc., would be there. But I got a late start in the day, had too many home projects, and the inertia bug bit me.

Part of my weird mood was that I had the (unlockable) door to my garage wedged shut because SOME FOOL DROVE HIS CAR INTO MY GARAGE late last Wednesday. I have a super long driveway too, so they were really stupid. Not anyone I know; probably some drunken idiot pulling in to turn around and he guns the reverse instead of the forward or something. The bottom panels on one side of the door were crushed and splintered. Even with a board propped up to block some of it, a thief could've crawled in. But the upside: I needed my ancient 1983 wooden garage doors replaced anyway, especially if I sell my house this year. So $1000 dollars later, I have two new metal garage doors with safer springs and hardware installed and done.

Saturday I did go see THE SAVAGES, which got an Oscar nomination for best actress for Laura Linley and for best original screenplay for Tamara Jenkins. My opinion of the move: meh. It wasn't "scathing and dark humor" like I'd read. It didn't have "honest and realistic adult sibling rivalry" either. It was about sad and depressive things: the deterioration and death of a parent. Philip Seymour Hoffman was bloated and scruffy and patronizing (the way his part was written). Laura Linley has done much better acting elsewhere. She's had too much work done on her face so everything is looking too pointed and beady. Add to that a truly awful dark wig (my hallmark for a good movie: good hair; don't skimp on the wig budget), and she was just too distracting and screechy.

My 14-year-old (cathode ray) tube TV finally died -- sorta. The red gun went out so everybody and everything is in shades of chartreuse and emerald. I only own one TV, so I had to get out there this afternoon and replace it so I could watch installment no.2 of the Complete Jane Austen on PBS tonight. --!!

I felt fairly lucky to go to BestBuy and find an LCD TV that advertised itself as a 22-inch screen and HDTV ready. Since it was on sale AND I got another 10% off because it was the demo, only $319. And it was so light! I didn't get a box or manuals, but it was so intuitive to use, and I could download the manuals off the Web, blah blah blah. And I had 30 days to bring it back if I didn't like it.

Well, it's going back tomorrow. I didn't realize many things about LCD TVs. For one, the viewing angle sucks! It's pretty easy to lose half the image just from sitting in various seats in my living room. Tube TVs aren't like that. The worst thing: it may measure 22-inch diagonally, but it reduces the images from TV to fit in the vertical dimension. I measured it: it's effectively like a 16-inch diagonal. The expired TV was 19-inch, so the picture on this one seems tiny. A reference I found said I should get a 26-inch diagonal LCD with the distance from the TV I use.

I may go back to digital-ready CRT. I'm just not willing to spend $500 to $1500 to $2500 for the HDTV-ready DTVs they're advertising now. It's been all confusing to me, but this article on How Stuff Works is helping.

Even though the cost and trouble of selling my current home (North Austin, been here 11 years) would be SUCH trouble, I keep feeling antsy. That new urban lifestyle I experience when I visit my friends in the big cities is looking so intriquing. Here in Austin, they've taken the (flat and homely) old Mueller ("Miller") Airport area and are developing it into a mixed retail/residential/clean business community called MuellerAustin. Like my buddy Tom Konrad just invested in in Denver, as a matter of fact.

I applied and qualified for their MuellerAustin Pioneer program -- to buy a place there while the infrastructure is still being constructed. Supposedly it'll be cheaper now... but $240K to $260K is STILL A LOT. I got oodles of equity in my home, but golly. So when the David Weekley Builder people emailed me that my number was up and I could come on in and make my choice, I backed out.

But this weekend, I thought I'd go by. Imagine my irritation when the Weekley sales trailer was locked and closed -- at 3 pm on a Saturday. That certainly seemed silly not to be available on a weekend. But then something made me drive around some of the construction (which is springing up FAST -- amazing numbers of structures just in 3 months). And lo, there were two David Weekley model homes, which were now their sales office. (Supposedly another agent manned that trailer, but she often didn't show up and didn't leave any notices about where to find the model homes.)

They were cute! All crammed in close together -- and these were the yard homes. I'd put myself down for a row home, which is like those San Francisco type houses with touching side walls and a garage/alley in the back. But still nice. Smallish, but made well. And for extra $$$ you can add all kinds of fancy tiles and granite counter tops and wooden floors, etc.

Plus the Manor Rd and 38th St corridors make getting from the neighborhood to downtown Austin pretty quick. No need to do the highways or MoPac.

So now I'm back on to thinking, hmmmmm. The homes they're selling now are across from the big park they're building (even adding hills to offset that landing strip flatness). If I got a home now, I could keep it 5-10 years, sell it for a profit, and then get my dream home in Hyde Park with the garage apartment...