Another beautiful day in North Iowa happened again, and I’m looking for all the many more before the leaves start turning. It saddens me a bit when knowing we’re heading into August which is likely going to be our last month of real summer. The weeks have flown by which is usually what happens when we want to hold them fast.
When I arrived at the office this morning, I took a good look what those workers from Country Landscapes have been doing, and began to bristle. Now that they’ve got nearly the entire stretch of the west sidewalk of north Federal re-paved, I’m noticing all these black spots and clods which look like dirt, but after a closer inspection, I discovered those small black clods not being dirt, but tar from the pavement cuts.
What’s really got me burning, is that machine they’re using with those funny looking rubber wheels, is digging that out in small chunks and those workers are not sweeping them up, and the worse of it is, the cars and trucks driving down Federal, are smashing those clods into the pavement. When you look at that once beautiful clean and nearly-new pavement, you see all those black spots of tar. Can contractors get anymore negligent?
I remember reading one of our illustrious newspersons praising the replacement of those pavers as being a good thing because the old ones were like going out in public with dirty fingernails. Well, I think all those ground-in clods of tar are going to be more “dirty fingernails”. Evidently that $250,000 paver replacement project didn’t include cleanup.
One day I happened to notice one of those workers sweeping those clods in circles and not picking them up. Whomever from the City is watching over those clowns, had better get on Country Landscapes about that hardened tar. I’m not sure if those that are already smashed into the pavement can even be removed, along with another issue they’ve caused, which is regarding those pavement cuts that are now missing their strips of tar, and we all know that’ll be the beginning of weeds growing in those cracks. More “dirty fingernails”.
I have a closing tomorrow, and hopefully it will be a soft landing for my buyer. Since it’s another agent’s listing, I’ll be doing a final walk-thru on it tomorrow morning before we drive out to the bank, and hopefully the seller didn’t leave any personal property behind because it is becoming more common of late, which gets everyone all stirred up at the last hour. I did remind the listing agent about it, so hopefully there’ll be no surprises.
One of my afternoon appointments today was with a long-time client/customer who’s looking at investing in a rental property. We spent well over an hour talking about the pros and cons of owning a rental, so I hope I made it clear enough that it can be a good investment, but one has to be very careful about not getting a naughty tenant with a history of trashing or refusing to pay rent. Irregardless of what anyone says, no un-deservingly tenant has a license for a free ride. Believe me, I’ve heard some pretty sorry excuses, and have learned to turn a deaf ear to weak excuses many years ago.
One of my scheduled appointments, was to show an acreage to a customer which I last sold about 21 years ago, and since I wasn’t the one to sell it to the current owner, it’s been that long since I’d stepped foot on that place. It was indeed a confirmation of those many years when seeing how tall those once young trees had grown. Back when I had it listed, it appeared as an open meadow, and now it proudly provides a thick grove of various hardwoods.
I was equally shocked when walking in the house because it had greatly changed as well, and I’m not going to be wicked regarding my thoughts, but what I was looking at, was a good example of week-end do-it-yourself projects. I’m sure many of those components came from Menard’s. There is a reason why Menard’s jingle goes, “Save big money at Menard’s”. I’ve oft found that when you save on price, you’ve likely undermined quality.
When in conversation today with one of my dear friends, we happened to talk about how some people have the ability to near completely distort the past to where you stand back, scratch you head and think, “Am I loosing my marbles or do they have dementia.” We both brought up examples of things that have been said and done in the past which were completely re-written by the “dementies”. I’m going to thank my friend for making a comparison which is about the best way to describe people who skew past events which was, “People like that have brains that somehow process, and then recall the past as though they’d been looking into fun-house mirrors.” What a perfect description! I’ll certainly remember and use her analogy at appropriate times in the future.
On a final note, please help me get 422 S. Tennessee Place sold. It’s priced so low that people think there’s something wrong with it, and there isn’t. The owner wants to move on with her life, and I want to help her make it happen.
Tonight’s one-liner is: Self-pity is never useful, because it tends to distort like a fun-house mirror.
