Fun at Heathrow
Well today I’m off on a little bit of business trip to NY whic hwill be fun but boy is Heathrow getting mroe intresting? Quick checing via e-ticket was quick and simple and got through the entire procedure in a few minutes. Just flash your passport at a machine, confirm a few details and you are good to go. Now its a good idea implemented well so that was cool. Walk over to checking, to a unfortunatly named bloke called Michael Fish, but no jokes about the weather.
Off through depatures and now they have a fun rule where you have to put your laptop in a plastic bag so all and sundry can see that you are carrying it (though admitally I’m just sat there typing on laptop battery it but I digress) but again nothing major. Just waiting to the other end will I will be taking my shoes off. Times like this I wish I had worn better socks but oh well.
In depatures now and found out a new nice T-Mobile hot spot stand where you can put your laptop and get free power to keep it topped up. All very nice. Not so nice are the T-Mobile prices but along comes my handy Vodafone 3G card to save the day. Well you would think in central London you would get 3G coverage? Nope of course not back to old GPRS which frankly sucks.
I’ve now got to sort out a customers server via VNC and GPRS and it is so very very slow. Least its a text based system so its manageble. For Windows I can’t help but think the pain it would inflict. Well just waiting for root pw and we can go
Buying a house from David Wilson Homes
Well as mentioned elsewhere I’m buying a house and with this in mind we’ve decided to get a new house from David Wilson Homes. So with that said here is my guide to getting the best deal out of them
Discounts - DWH appears to offer between 3-5% discounts the further you go up their prices chain. It appears on a less than 200k you normally get the 3% and then 1% for every extra £100k you add onto the house value. So the higer you go the more discount you can get. Taking their public finances from the last year I worked out that they appear to make about £30-35,000 per house so they will try to work within those limits.
Part Exchange - The part exchange the DWH offers is normally based on your house being less than 30 years old and that you are going up to another house at least 30% greater in value for you to be even considered. Also bear in mind if you do part exchange the price they will sell your existing house at will be about £5-10k below market rate so they can sell it in a few weeks. If you go for a private sale you will normally get more however you will have to incur estate agents fees. In some circumstances it can be good but its worth sitting down and doing the numbers.
Marry someone who works for them - Staff get decent further discounts. See if you can use this to your advantage.
Free Stuff - If you are working the discount you should normally try to get stamp duty paid at least as this is “free” easy money. For the extra freebies its worth also negoiating the price of the house down. Normally you can get £2-3k without any problems. If you still have some budget I would try to say to get the carpest however a word of warning is that the selection is minimal and the quality is the cheaper end of the market. Also it will be the same carpet throughout the entire house.
Plots go quick - If you do find a dream plot a word of warning that they do go quick. The one I was looking at had another 2 people intrested over the same weekend. Also from overheard phone conversation in the sales office its happened to a number of other people. So if you are going for something I would say it might be best to have your house under offer , or be a first time buyer as otherwise you might end up dissapointed.
The buying process is still ongoing so any other hints and tips will be added (should any crop up)
The fun of buying a house
You know its not till you actually start going through buying/selling a house you realiase how much paperwork and money is involved. So far I’ve filled out liettarly about 20 forms, spent hours on the phone and sent off so many copies of bank statements that the people on the other end of the phone bank have a special place for me in their hearts.
So with all this done I’m still getting the mortgage sorted out as one of the fun things of being self employeed means that it can be hard to prove your income as there is no such thing as a regular payslip. However there are a few mortgage companies that do seem to be willing to help such as Standard Life who will at least listen to you.
Currently things are with the IFA so fingers crossed it will all go through today.
The worlds a funny old place
Just when you think that the world is out of balance and things are falling out of kilter it seems to all come back together. One person moves out of a box and another person moves straight back into the same one. Ah the wonders of yin and yang
Today I learnt about Bovril
Bovril By 1994 enough Bovril was sold to make over 90 million mugs of hot drink - that’s enough for every person attending a football League Match to have one at the beginning, one at half-time, one at the end and another cup when they got home.
Thats quite a lot of beef flavoured drinks and I guess it would make you pee a lot
This new years resolutions
This year my plans are to
- Loose 36 lbs (or more) within 6 months
- Go SkyDiving (see 1)
- Become a SkyDiving Instructor (if I like 2)
- Learn Ruby (hell actually learn a programming langauge decently)
- Move House
Well that should hopefully keep me busy for this year at least
MAN DATES GAL ON INTERNET FOR SIX MONTHS — AND IT TURNS OUT SHE’S HIS MOTHER!
No this is just to sick
Yahoo! Top Stories - MAN DATES GAL ON INTERNET FOR SIX MONTHS — AND IT TURNS OUT SHE’S HIS MOTHER!
Warms hands
Finally after going a drive this moring I’ve got warm hands and can type. Woo
Does a Lava Lamp work on its side?
Well speaking in IRC this morning I mentioned that I had turned on my old lava lamp for a bit of relaxation. So the question was posed..Does a Lava lamp work if turned onto its side? Well in a very unsafe and unscientifc way I went to find out
We started by just turning the lava lamp on to allow it to heat up. I elected to use a SpongeBob Square Pants mug and a pen holder to stop the lamp falling off the desk as they were the most handy things around. Anyway taking the age of the lamp it took a good 45 minutes to warm up but finally got there
So once warm we went for the moment of truth and turned the lava lamp on its side
and then all the Lava just floated near to the bulb and sat there. So therefore we have shown that lava lamps will not work on their side and I’ve wasted an hour of my life showing this. What fun
Reflections
Well another day another dollar so they so. Well perhaps its another pound but the day is done and the sun is setting. So what did we see today. Well looks like another company has been hit by Paypal problems.
Not a good thing and will most likely cause customer loss
On a personal level its been a quiet day. Organising the weekend when its a friends birthday. Meal and Jazz club so that should be a nice change. Well its nearly the weekend now so thats something to be thankful for