Friday, December 22, 2006

Disinterested Buyer, Pt 2

This is a follow-on idea to one of my morally bankrupt business plans, but probably legal and not really unethical. This proposed mechanism would only work in a buyer's market, but given the world of hurt real estate is in these days, I think it might just work.

Instead of the buyer making a bid on a property, a buyer instead requests the seller to make a proposal. This process mirrors long-standing standard corporate and government practices. In order for this to really work, you would have to provide the seller a list of "comparables" currently on the market, and indicate that you are soliciting proposals for all of them.

I'm not sure it would work, but I am thinking about trying it...

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Disinterested Buyer, Pt 1

This is going to be an on-going set of posts as I try (slowly) to find a place to live. Currently, I live in a so-so apartment. It's major disadvantage is that it's a little smaller than I want, and not really the greatest shape. The major advantages is that compared to my income, it's cheap, and it has off-street parking. This means that I've been saving up a good deal of money for the past few years, and not having to worry about where to park.

Now, I'm starting to be more serious about buying a place. However, every once in a while, I see a picture online that make me second guess this decision. Generally, it's something like this:



I mean, it's like being in some sort of halloween refugee camp. What were they thinking?

Monday, December 04, 2006

Army Culture for Dummies, Pt 1

Let's see if I can use HTML in Blogger entries to build this table:















































































TitleAbbrCommand GroupGroup SizeNotes
2nd Lieutenant2LT??????None
1st Lieutenant1LTPlatoon30-40None
CaptainCPT?????????
MajorMAJCompany100-200First level of UCMJ "Command"
Lieutenant ColonelLTCBattalion300-1,000
ColonelCOLBrigade3,000-5,000
Brigadier GeneralBG???"One Star," Generally deputy to a MG
Major GeneralMGDivision10,000-15,000"Two Star"
Lieutenant GeneralLTGCorps20,000-45,000"Three Star"
GeneralGENCommands all troops within a geographic area


I'm starting a new project. I'm going to try to blog a little bit about my attempts to wrap my head around military culture. The recommendation I got was to read a few modern books on military operations (that would be code for Iraq), and the two in my Amazon.com shopping cart now are:



More as I learn it.