October 17, 2002 - Yeah, I guess I'm not a very good blogger since I don't really update very often. Then again, I don't think anyone really reads this thing, so oh well. It appears that insurance companies won't insure a house that's more than about 50 years old. That's too bad because the house we want was built in 1910! Actually, even the insurance agents have told us that they'd love to insure a house like that because it's probably built better than anything built in the last 50 years, but their underwriters don't want it for some legal reason. They're apparently scared of having to pay out for Mold or flooding since that's been the case for so many people here since Allison. But that's a big crock o' shit. I mean, they're really scared of having to pay it out, but it's shit because that's what the companies leep telling us insurance is for, right? A lending company won't lend you money for a house unless you get it insured, but then you can't get insurance if the insurance company thinks they might actually have to pay for it. As you can see, I don't like the insurance industry. They market their product as a safeguard against an unlikely tragedy that you, the consumer, might not be able to recover from without coverage. THEN, when something like the flooding for tropical storm Allison comes along, they back out of their deal. They say, "We didn't actually think anything was REALLY gonna happen! We just lobbied your government to make insurance mandatory so that we could get your money every month for doing nothing! Now that we now that tragedy actually does happen here in Texas, we don't think we can insure you anymore." Yeah, maybe I'm just bitter cause it's the insurance search that's holding us up with getting the house we want. However, I might also be bitter about huge insurance corporations being able to initiate legislation that makes them enormous amounts of money without having to be responsible for anything while the consumer can only go to work everyday and hope that the next politician that claims to want to help the people actually does so. Or maybe I'm just a sick, bitter, cynical, green liberal. Either way, I still gotta figure out a way to find insurance for this house.

October 4, 2002 - So, We're trying to buy a house. There's a lot more involved than I thought there was. There's contracts and money down and inspections and appraisals and processing fees; and all of them need to be paid or done within a period of about a week! It's rather damn stressful. In the meantime, We're trying to get our own finacnes together to pay for all these fees and closing costs, make appointments and meet with realtors and lenders, make phone calls and faxes; and all while we're at work or while we're in the middle of something at home. Even still, we're trying to see when to find time to go to karate class, have enough time and money to see Sarah's family and my family, and try to cook with enough left over for lunch the next day (since we're trying to have enough money for a down payment, we're trying to curb our spending by not going out to eat so much). There's so much stuff going on and sometimes it doesn't all get done. Maybe it'll be better once the sale goes through (man, I hope the sale goes through). We're very excited about this house. It's just what we've been looking for.