Some of you may know that Ana, my wife, and I have been in the process of finding and buying a house, a thing Ana has been wanting to do since she was a kid. In fact, we moved to New Mexico, to Albuquerque, for the specific purpose of buying a house in a place we liked and in a market we could afford to buy one.
Well, the search for the right house didn't take us that long. We drew up, each of us, a tiered list of things we wanted, things that would be nice to have and deal breakers. For the most part, our lists were nearly identical. We looked at a few houses when we first got here, sort of feeling out the market, but we didn't begin looking in earnest until we had our financing in process, something which we did through a state program for first-time home buyers and the assistance of a real estate agent who is a family friend.
We looked at about a dozen or so - maybe as many as fifteen - houses that met out basic criteria each of us finding one we liked better than the others . . . until we found this one house. It hit all of our needs, a good number of our wants and no deal breakers. So, we put in an offer and played the horse-trading game that most Americans do to buy a car, a horse, or a house.
In the end, we got pretty much all we asked for, except price - which we admittedly low-balled - but for less than the listed price. All did not go smoothly, the process is designed, it would seem, to frustrate home buyers. We had to take - and pass - an on-line course from the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority. Hoops through which to jump.
In the end, we closed almost a week later than chosen by the seller - but on the day we had originally chosen in our offer. And then the next phase began. Ana didn't want to live in a bland white interior as she had pretty much all her life. So, we chose and bought and applied paint on the walls where we knew there would be furniture as a first step. We'll get to the other walls after we get fully moved in.
The plan had been to rent a truck and have a crew of our friends - six in all - assist us in loading the truck and unloading it at the new place. We got the truck, but of the six, only one showed up and gave yeoman service, service above and beyond our expectations. She helped Ana do some last minute packing and then loaded the truck for a couple of hours and then helped unload it at the other end.
We got little of the furniture - not the TV console, not the dresser, not the large corner desk that will go in my office - we each have an office, and we have a guest room - and not the bed. So, because of our friends' croissant-level flakiness, we have been sleeping on our air mattresses and will until the weekend.
The major up side is that we got the TV moved and the new service from Comcast effortlessly set up and both our comfortable chairs and Avi, our 16-pound cat, after some initial shyness - he was confined to the master bathroom while we were moving and spent most of his time there cowering behind the toilet. But after we finished making a ruckus and moving stuff around, he came out and now seems to be perfectly at home. He has discovered box-land, the future dinning/game room, which is now full of boxes, some from the apartment some out of storage. We'll be seeing to those boxes over the next several months, eventually finding a place for everything, even if that place is not with us or in our home.
We have embarked on a journey, We describe this as our "forever home" meaning that, barring some major changes, this is the house we will live in for the rest of our lives. The house won't be paid for until I turn 100, which I think is doubtful. I said from the beginning that this would be the house were my wake would be held and I meant it. The end result is a 1713 square foot house with decent bones and recently upgrades and a large back yard with mature fruit trees. But the journey wasn't all that much fun and it is still not over.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Monday, October 6, 2014
Birthday comments and review of Kershaw Cryo II Tanto folding knife
I turned 70 today, or, more accurately, I celebrated the passing of 70 years since my birth. Among the gifts my wife, Ana and the cat, Avi, got me were a Kershaw Cryo II tanto, with their Blackwash finish. It is an assisted flipper, meaning once you have started the blade moving with the flipper tab on the back of the knife, the internal spring does the rest.
I have a fondness for the American Tanto blade shape, owning three blades in this pattern. I have an old Elishewitz-designed tanto liner-lock folder from Benchmade which I got nearly 20 years ago and have carried pretty much ever since as my every day carry knife (EDC ). While we were getting supplies at Home Depot for our painting and electrical upgrade to the new house, I found a Milwaukee assisted folder with a tanto-style blade for a small sum and added it to the cart, sort of an early birthday present to myself. It will need a good sharpening, since out of the the plastic shell display card it doesn't have all that keen an edge.
Anyway, I thought I'd give a short critique of the Kershaw. It is, as I said, an assisted flipper. Kershaw calls it a Speedsafe system, which is a trademark of theirs. It works well.
Closing the knife is via the frame lock, which is formed by a portion of the frame on the left side of the knife - when you hold it in your hand with the blade edge up - and serves to lock the knife by moving to the right and blocking the blade from closing. It is a solid, positive lock-up, and engages about 25% of the blade in what is considered an "early lock-up." It requires a bit of effort to unlock the blade at this point, and I expect it will ease up a bit as I use it. The frame lock is prevented from being bent too far outward by the patented frame lock over-travel limiter designed by Rick Hinderer, who designed the knife. It is a solid design, well tested in a variety of blades, both Hinderer's and others made under license.
This is a production knife made in China from Hinderer's design for Kershaw. For an under $50 knife, retail, the quality seems to be quite good. The blade is centered well within the frame, almost dead on. This is common on custom knives, expected, but not as common on factory-made knives.
Out of the box - a nice, simple printed cardboard box with a label on one end - the knife was sharp over its whole length. The blade, what is termed an "American Tanto" design, also has a slight belly recurve, which will make it a little harder to sharpen, but gives a great cut, especially on a draw-cut, with the curve carrying the blade through whatever is being cut. I expect, since this will be an EDC knife, to find the limits of both the factory edge and the design features.
After many years of not buying knives, I am back in the market. For years, I set an upper limit of $100 for a knife, meaning I was mostly buying production knives, with a couple of simple customs by lesser known - or unknown - makers, including a couple of fixed-blade knives from David Boye. I will hold close to that price-point, going up by maybe fifty or even as much as another hundred for the right knife. I suspect that most of my acquisitions will still hover right around the $100 mark.
As I acquire new knives, I will probably blog about them, adding photos as I can. I am still mostly a gun guy, but with the price of guns, adding more to my collection is a slow process and since I no longer carry every day, my actual needs are less. Since my health began to get less optimum - and isn't that a government-speak phrase - I compete less, if at all, so I am not buying guns for any of the disciplines in which used to compete.
I hope to be able to find a suitable place to display my knives in my office in the new house into which we are in the process of moving. We need to paint the great room before we move furniture, but then it will be a matter of unpacking boxes, in which I hope to find all of my knives, some packed away for some time.
I have a fondness for the American Tanto blade shape, owning three blades in this pattern. I have an old Elishewitz-designed tanto liner-lock folder from Benchmade which I got nearly 20 years ago and have carried pretty much ever since as my every day carry knife (EDC ). While we were getting supplies at Home Depot for our painting and electrical upgrade to the new house, I found a Milwaukee assisted folder with a tanto-style blade for a small sum and added it to the cart, sort of an early birthday present to myself. It will need a good sharpening, since out of the the plastic shell display card it doesn't have all that keen an edge.
Anyway, I thought I'd give a short critique of the Kershaw. It is, as I said, an assisted flipper. Kershaw calls it a Speedsafe system, which is a trademark of theirs. It works well.
Closing the knife is via the frame lock, which is formed by a portion of the frame on the left side of the knife - when you hold it in your hand with the blade edge up - and serves to lock the knife by moving to the right and blocking the blade from closing. It is a solid, positive lock-up, and engages about 25% of the blade in what is considered an "early lock-up." It requires a bit of effort to unlock the blade at this point, and I expect it will ease up a bit as I use it. The frame lock is prevented from being bent too far outward by the patented frame lock over-travel limiter designed by Rick Hinderer, who designed the knife. It is a solid design, well tested in a variety of blades, both Hinderer's and others made under license.
This is a production knife made in China from Hinderer's design for Kershaw. For an under $50 knife, retail, the quality seems to be quite good. The blade is centered well within the frame, almost dead on. This is common on custom knives, expected, but not as common on factory-made knives.
Out of the box - a nice, simple printed cardboard box with a label on one end - the knife was sharp over its whole length. The blade, what is termed an "American Tanto" design, also has a slight belly recurve, which will make it a little harder to sharpen, but gives a great cut, especially on a draw-cut, with the curve carrying the blade through whatever is being cut. I expect, since this will be an EDC knife, to find the limits of both the factory edge and the design features.
After many years of not buying knives, I am back in the market. For years, I set an upper limit of $100 for a knife, meaning I was mostly buying production knives, with a couple of simple customs by lesser known - or unknown - makers, including a couple of fixed-blade knives from David Boye. I will hold close to that price-point, going up by maybe fifty or even as much as another hundred for the right knife. I suspect that most of my acquisitions will still hover right around the $100 mark.
As I acquire new knives, I will probably blog about them, adding photos as I can. I am still mostly a gun guy, but with the price of guns, adding more to my collection is a slow process and since I no longer carry every day, my actual needs are less. Since my health began to get less optimum - and isn't that a government-speak phrase - I compete less, if at all, so I am not buying guns for any of the disciplines in which used to compete.
I hope to be able to find a suitable place to display my knives in my office in the new house into which we are in the process of moving. We need to paint the great room before we move furniture, but then it will be a matter of unpacking boxes, in which I hope to find all of my knives, some packed away for some time.
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