A Little Place Called Home

As much as I like to say that I am a person who just does something - often times without much prior planning - I have to admit, I'm taking a lot of time and planning on figuring out what I am going to do when it comes to my housing situation.

You see, I am in no hurry at all to buy anything. I am living in a prime spot and have a good roommate/landlord/slum king who doesn't charge me too much. But eventually I want to either find a place of my own or move on to my next adventure. I figure I'll give Charlotte a chance though.

Now most people figure that when they are looking for a place to live, a house is where it's at. After all, isn't it the American Dream to have property of your own, with 2 cars and maybe 1 retarded dog? Me being the American I am have definitely done my fair share of scouting out houses. Tonight, in fact, I looked at a couple of houses. One of those - by the pictures - seemed to have been a very well done renovated house. Solid brick with beautiful dark hardwood floors. Open floor plan with a bit of a backyard. The only problem is that while driving down the street to the house it occurred to me if I were to have gotten out of my car, I may not return to it again.

The other house held more promise. It was an abandoned house on the edge of a neighborhood. The cons - which are many and highly expensive - included no central heat, rotted wood exterior and was across the street from a commercial lot and a busy intersection of 2 highways. But all that aside, the neighborhood was very well decorated still from Christmas, had large old trees, and the view from the front porch was, well, quite amazing:

That is Uptown/Downtown Charlotte (depending on who you ask). The location is maybe 2 minutes from I-77 and about a quarter mile from Bank of America Stadium. Although the asking price is within my budget, the estimated renovation makeover would nearly double what I'm looking to spend.

But me being me, I have other ideas too. A thought has crossed my mind - as well as the motivation - to look for a commercial building that is two stories. The second story would be converted to a loft apartment while the down stairs would could be rented out to a business - or I could become creative and use it to start my own. There are surprisingly quite a lot of older all brick two-story buildings all around Charlotte and its surrounding towns - in fact in nearly every Main Street in America. The hard part is finding one that is priced reasonably and located in an area where renting out either a loft apartment, commercial building or both is feasible. If it were easy, some idiot would've done it already.

Only time will tell what exactly I will be doing, but for now I am enjoying the search for something that I may one day call home.

Gifts and Story Time

Oh Christmas time. A time of giving, of charity...of stress.

You see, my family decided this year to celebrate Christmas on Martin Luther King day - to avoid the stress of the season. Not having to fight the crowds and getting good discounts after the season sounded good to me. But still, there are some people who will be getting their traditional Christmas gift on (or around) Christmas day.

Which brings me to the fact that I have known for a long time but have never admitted to: I am horrible at gift giving.

I don't exactly understand the whole concept of gift giving. I see things in fairly practical terms. If I need something, I buy it. If I don't need it, I usually don't buy it. So when I am buying for someone else, my whole coordination of reasoning gets all screwy and I end up usually buying someone something terribly inadequate or give them a gift card (or a used one - true story).

So this year, if you get a gift from me, I apologize. If you don't, take it as a compliment. There is NOTHING I could get you that would be in any way useful.

That being said, a few stories to share that are just interesting and amusing.

This guy came into my office the other week and claimed that there was fraud on his checking account. Being the highly trained (and motivated) employee I am, I did my due diligence and looked through his account. I noticed the past few months there seemed to be a charge from this company - in different dollar amounts - on his account. So I asked him if he had ever heard of this company, which we will call "Gyro Pill". He said no. I asked him if he had started any kind of trail or free offer online or through the phone. He said no. So I say, "Well, I'm going to Google this company and see what they do." You could literally hear the air go out of the room.

The results of searching "Gyro Pill" was a nice list of erectile dysfunction and "performance enhancing" bedroom pills. Or as "Curb Your Enthusiasm" puts it: He was juicing.

So trying to not make things "awkward", I again ask him if maybe by chance he had done a free trial with a "supplement" company. Well now he seemed to remember quite vividly signing up for some "Cholesterol reducing pills".

Ah yes. Of course.

So I ask him if he was still receiving any of these "cholesterol pills" and he said that it was a one time deal and should have only cost him $4. Well, being I have seen this charge many times from previous months I told him that if he wanted to dispute this charge he would have to call the company and see if they would refund his unwanted purchase. And I said since you have your cell phone with you, why don't you go ahead and call them.

Needless to say, it was a fairly amusing conversation as he would never quite say what it was he "didn't order" while he was trying to get them to refund his purchase. In the end, they promised to refund his money within 3 days. He was happy. I was entertained.

The next story is one of a little more Christmassy Spirit. A lady had gone to another financial institution and applied for a car loan. She was wanting to purchase a used car for her husband for Christmas. They told her that they could do it, but at a paralyzing 17% interest rate. So she called up and wanted to know if we could do something for her.

I told her she would have to come in so we could run the loan application and to bring the things we needed in order to make a decision. And since we don't price our auto loans by credit risk - we have a flat rate of 4.75% - if we could do something for her, we could save her a lot of money over the time of the loan.

Well she drove to the branch and I ran the application for her. Pulling her credit, she seemed to be a low risk candidate. Her credit had been anchored down due to a small, but outstanding, medical collection. She had previous positive lending history with us and had a very good and steady income and a fairly low debt to income burden.

When we got through the application and to the decision, we were able to pre-approve her for the loan. She was so happy that she jumped across my desk and hugged me.

So in the Spirit of Christmas, don't always look for the reason why you can deny something to someone. Look at the whole picture and find a way - if possible - to make a positive contribution towards individuals and society as a whole. You never know when you will be the one to find yourself in need of someone who will go that extra mile to find a way to help you out.

Merry Christmas.

Tacky Christmas Sweaters

Tis the season to be...

Well, I'm sure everyone can fill in their own end to that sentence, but for me it would go: "Tis the season for tacky sweaters!"

OK, so actually I've done maybe 1 tacky sweater party in my life but being that I will be going to one this weekend I've kind of gotten into the Holiday Spirit that revolves solely around sweaters and how bad they can look.

It's amazing how there seems to be a community devoted to any subject you could ever think of. Google "Tacky Sweater" and go down the list of websites and pictures and you will find that this is a passion for many people - and also a business. But before we go into the big business side of the Christmas Sweater Industry, let us first dive into the imagination and creativity that drives the uniqueness and fun of WHY people dress up in just terrible cotton coverage.

Let's start with a creative one. Everyone remembers growing up and having those magnetic words scattered across the refrigerator. Now what brings back the nostalgic feel of being a kid and the comfort of being around grandparents than this amazing Christmas sweater?

And as we all know, everyone loves animals - more so than humans. And while they let other humans starve and freeze in the outdoors, they want to make sure that their own animals are well manicured, well fed and well dressed. Who can't help but to say "Awwww" to these adorable dogs pulling off this years Christmas sweater "Best dressed" award:

Christmas always was a fun time for me growing up. Sadly over time, I found out that Santa did not exist and that most of the toys I got growing up were assembled in sweat shops by children my age who were paid beans and housed in cramped quarters. But happily for humanity, there are those out there who still hold onto the faith of a child when it comes to Christmas time and still have that look in their eyes when they see Santa in the mall. Here's to you:

Then there are the overachivers in life. They were the ones who made sure you never got a curve on your science test. They are the ones who know how to pronounce every word in the dictionary but never seem to want to talk. When we talk about the Christmas Sweater season, they say "NO! We want to go further. Sweaters AND vests!" To you overachievers, here is a salutation:

And finally, to the friends and companions who must match at all times, this time of year creates an opportunity to spend time with that special person creating something that is unique to others but shows your closeness to each other.

But as mentioned earlier, there is also a market for these sweaters. I dare you to go to your local thrift store and try and find a Christmas sweater right now. Chances are, unless a murder had obviously happened to the former wearer of the sweater, you won't find one. This understanding has not gone past those evil corporate monsters who suck the blood out of us poor consumers.

Some retailers have Christmas sweaters going for over $800! Urban Outfitter has sweaters that say "Holiday Sweater" going for $80! Online "Authentic 1980's Sweaters" (meaning they were bought at a thrift store for $5) are going from $25 - $60! Go on Ebay, Amazon or another online marketplace and you will find that the prices for these things are insane - if you can find them at all!

Adam Smith would be proud.

So when you go out for your tacky Christmas party, realize that you might be able to sell that hideous piece of cloth for more than you paid for it next year.

Beer Me

There are a few things that interest me deeply. Politics, sports, finance, food and drink. Being the season of Merry-ness that is Christmastime, I have decided it is time to talk about beer.

Beer being what it is, can be seen as good or bad. Beliefs on that aside, nearly everyone has at one time or another enjoyed a beer - and reactions after that first taste have ranged from "Wow" (in a good way) to "Wow" (in a bad way). From my personal experience, I've found American beers very - no hugely - disappointing when it comes to taste and flavor. My nickname for Budlight is beer flavored water.

But I am not going to focus on what we don't do right in this country. Instead, I'm going to focus on something that I have steadily come to appreciate more and more overtime: Microbreweries.

As of the beginning of this year, the United States has over 1700 registered microbreweries and craft breweries (and for the sake of simplicity I will not go into explaining the differences between the two). Some of these microbreweries you have heard of, such as Boston Brewing Company (Sam Adams), Sierra Nevada (one of my favorites), Magic Hat and the Rogue Ales.

According to the Brewers Association:

...it appears that there were 1,751 breweries in 1900 and 1,498 in 1910. So we have more breweries than we have since around 1905.

So the microbrew is making a comeback of sorts.

I remember back in college, me and a few friends decided one day to make a batch of beer ourselves. One of the guys had a home brew kit he had purchased a few months before and had done it a few times. We did a little research, printed off a recipe and headed to the local brew supply store (and yes, they do have them! The one in Columbia is called Liquid Hobby) and purchased our needed things to make an Amber Ale.

The novices we were, we spent 6 hours doing what we came to find out near the end we could have achieved in maybe 2. We had consumed a lot of beer (we needed to start saving the bottles to reuse for our brew), broken a thermometer, and ran a cooling system that consisted of a garden hose, cooler filled with ice and paint buckets. At the end of the night though, we had 5 gallons of brew in the carboy and a good story to tell.

Now these microbrews are a bit more professional than our attempt at home brewery - and it shows. If you include server staff at brewpubs (like Hunter Gatherer in Columbia), the microbrew industry employees around 100,000 people! And according to Brewers Association, craft brewer retail dollar value in 2010 was an estimated $7.6 billion, up from $7 billion in 2009.

That's very impressive. In fact, to be a bit more local, North and South Carolina are some very important hubs when it comes to microbrew and craft beer production. According to NCBeer.org North Carolina boasts more craft breweries than any state in the American South, with 21 brewpubs and 28 production breweries statewide. Here in Charlotte, we have 3 of those microbreweries: Four Friends Brewing, Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery, and The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery. The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery is actually just minutes from where I live and I will be making a visit there shortly.

South Carolina, sadly doesn't boast quite as much as North Carolina but you still will find a few to choose from. In Columbia, there is only the aforementioned Hunter Gatherer. But you can find many places that serve microbrew beers - such as The Whig. Also, go north up to Greenville and you will find the Thomas Creek Brewery and the RJ Rockers brewery in Spartanburg, both of which are carried in many stores.

So this Christmas season, step away from the PBR and Coorslight and enjoy something with a little taste. Try a beer from your local brewery or from a company that doesn't advertise during the Super Bowl. Here is a list of the largest microbreweries in America.

Hockeytown USA

There is one thing that has really surprised me about Charlotte - we have a hockey team. Now being a fan of the short-lived Columbia Inferno, being able to watch a game of hockey is something I have missed for the past few years. I mean, you can rarely even catch it on TV these days. So when I found out on Sunday that Charlotte has a team, I did some research. I Googled "Charlotte hockey".

Apparently we have a pretty decent team. In only their second year in the league (the franchise moved from Albany only to have another team start), the Carolina Hurricane AHL affiliate Charlotte Checkers are no joke. Last night, I got to see for myself what kind of hockey gets played here in Charlotte.

The Checkers play in the Time Warner Cable Arena and compared to the Carolina Colosseum, it's like being in the Taj Mahal (I'm sure I misspelled that...). It is very well lit, they have the huge scoreboard up, and the atmosphere there is not at all what I was expecting. The people there are really into it.

Now being that it was a very dreary Monday night, I wasn't sure if I'd be walking into an empty Arena. Now granted, the second ring is closed off, but there are still probably 8000 seats that are available during the games and I would estimate 65 - 70 percent of them were filled with some people looking to enjoy a game of hockey. The front section behind goal was filled with a group of people who had cowbells. They did a good job of trying to get inside the heads of the opposing team (which were the Lake Eerie Monsters). Their goalie (last name Cann) got quite a few good ones. The whole section would start chanting "Cannnnnn...Caaaannnnnnnnnn...Caaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnn...YOU SUCK!" And it would go on to any other player who was around.

The overall experience was much better than most baseball games I've attended (minus maybe the Dodger game when I was in LA a few years ago). Not able to compete with a Gamecock football game, but overall if you go to a Charlotte Checker game, you won't be disappointed.

But no night is complete without a little twisted humor. This week I am driving a borrowed car as mine is getting some service done. Nonetheless, I am driving a hotrod of a vehicle - a 1995 Monte Carlo. Now before you start to hate on it, its only got 40,000 miles on it, so it still drives like it's fairly new. But one of the "minor" defects in the car is that the door sometimes won't unlock - even with the key in the lock. This happened, so THIS happened:

Also, for humor sake, after the game we went out to a restaurant at the Epicenter. Apologies it won't rotate but I hope you enjoy this one: