Big News... I hope

The story of a man´s life is nothing but a string of milestones; marks on a time line if you will.

Birth; heaviest baby for the year of 1982 Baptist East Memorial Hospital (the largest maternity ward in a metro area of 1.2 million people) weighing 11 pounds, 10 ounces.

First day of school; my grandmother, a licensed child psychiatrist, extensively coached me on the contents of the current kindergarten IQ test, leading to me scoring a genius level and therefore starting school at the age of 4.

First car; bought about every teenager´s dream car, a Jeep Wrangler with big wheels. Still look back fondly on it.

Losing of virginity; would have had more fun staying home and beating off.

Graduating college; should have gone to a state school and shorted the nasdaq with the saved money.

First serious job; borrowing the words of Sammy Sosa, "Poker has bean berry, berry goood to me."

Which leads me to the current milestone. Barring something going terribly awry, I am now a proud homeowner. Unofficially I had been in the market to buy for about a year now, but I had been a pussy and inclined to take the easy 8-10% a year from my portfolio. Well, upon returning from my recent voyage through Brasil I decided to get serious about it. After viewing about 2000 ads and actually visiting about 15 apartments, I think I found a gem. It is a loft facing a quite tree-lined street in the Greenwich Village equivalent of BA. It has high ceilings (I hit my head at least once a day on doorways here). The contiguous window facing the street measures about 20x20 feet. The building is only 7 years old, which is good for a city where 80 year old buildings are quite common. And it is 53 squared meters (550 sq ft), not big, but spacious for a loft.

A couple weeks ago I went and viewed an identical apartment in the same building. It was facing the back of the building; i.e. parking lot. The owner was asking 64kUSD and I was seriously considering it. 1.2k per sq mt in a loft in this area was a pretty good deal. A few days later I go back to the real estate agency ready to put an offer down on this other property in a different area I liked, but wasn´t bonkers over (it was just too cheap of a deal to pass up). As luck would have it, someone had just made an offer on it, making it off limits to me. So as I walk away deflated the realtor says,

"Have you seen the specs on so-and-so address..."

"Yeah I saw it a while ago... the owner doesn´t want to come down off of 64k. Plus I would like something facing the street"

"No, this is a different apartment, same building, owner´s asking 56K"

So I go over there and see it and try to hide the fact that if I had 56k on me I would have bought it right then.

You know those HUD commercials where a token minority family walks into their first home they were able to afford through government subsidies. The wife starts crying tears of joy as the two kids scurry to their room to try and claim the top bunk. Well that same HUD house, nestled in a flood plain, on top a landfill, with its rice paper walls and drinking straw plumbing was more expensive than my new bachelor pad situated in one of the most high-demand areas in the 7th largest metro area in the world. Gonna pay 53k for that bitch.

For those familiar with BA, ti is on Guatemala and Carranza in Palermo Soho. Two blocks from Santa Fe, 4 blocks from the Carranza Metro stop on the green line. 3 blocks from the strip of bars on Fitz Roy and pretty close to Plaza Serrano as well.

so needless to say, I am pretty happy about the situation now. I probably just put a hell of a jinx on the deal, but I don´t believe in bad luck so fuck it. So if any of you pricks are in the neighborhood, I´ll have a futon with your name on it. Kevin sleeps on the floor.