Richmond Update

For those of you following our pending move to Richmond, here’s an update. We have checked out some really great places in Virginia. All of them are realistic options, but one in particular stood out to us.

We have found this single family home, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a HUGE fenced in yard. This would be great for my three year old who would have room outside to play and desperately wants a puppy. The house is an older house but the owner has done a fabulous job in renovating the place. He still has more work to do too! One of the pictures I’m including below demonstrates the kitchen which has all new stainless steel appliances, plenty of cabinet and counter space and the whole place has beautiful hardwood floors.

He is being pretty picky about who he rents to and has not advertised the place outside of Craigslist. Of course, that’s how I found it. I believe he promoted it only there because he is likely to find tech-savvy users there. He did not explicitly say he wanted tech people, but he did explicitly say he was looking for a professional family which to me says there is a low signal-to-noise ratio of potential candidates by advertising there as opposed to in the local newspaper or on apartments.com .

So Why Rent? Why not Buy?

Good question, of course. We’d like to buy. Trust me. We’re not in a position at the time to do so, though. We moved into this apartment two years ago and while it’s been a good experience as apartments go, it is still an apartment. The other night I was woke up from a dead sleep to the sound of the people upstairs doing something. It sounded like they were moving furniture and it shook the entire building. Then, last night my wife and I spent the night on the sofa because the air conditioning unit outside our bedroom window decided to break. The fan is hitting something and it is making an incessant rat-tat-tat-tat-ta that continues to this moment. I still can’t believe someone is running an air conditioning when it is a balmy 75 degrees outside. I digress…

This place we are looking at sounds like it will be rent-with-option-to-buy.

Job Stuff

I still can’t fully go into detail about my job situation. It does not involve Northrop Grumman whom I have worked for for so many years now. In fact, before Northrop Grumman I worked for Lockheed Martin and before that CSC. It’s time to escape the military-industrial complex and I am having the chance to do something that I have been positioning myself to do for almost as long. Call it going solo, if you will. In fact, that’s a very good description. I have some opportunities that will allow me to be self-employed, at least for a time to get this dream out of my system. It’s not fully solo as it involves working on some major client projects that will in essence have me working for my client full time. But I’ll be able to work from home, make my own hours, etc. Since I’m under non-disclosure at the moment, I can’t talk about the client or the project.

Tagged as: richmond