I bought a house. There's a lot that could be said about that but the architects and landscapers have wikipedia articles. It is the largest house in town, with far and away the most cultural heritage. It attracted my interest - despite the terrible photos - because it is a thousand yards from my wife's business and has a workshop. As it turns out it also has an easy $2m worth of architectural provenance. Which the sellers didn't know despite it taking 10 minutes with Google to determine. It isn't quite like having a chainsaw sculpture at the end of the driveway that says "LLOYD WRIGHT"? But it's close.

It was on the market for four months. Went through eight open houses. And received one offer.

The sellers didn't know a lot, and they tried to hide more which means eight inspections and estimates knocked a third off the asking price. It's substantially bigger than the City thinks or Redfin knows and, of course, neither Redfin nor Zillow know the provenance. Despite that - just going off of what's in public records, Redfin awarded me the highest score I've ever seen in fifteen years of looking. They think I got that house for 40% under market. The bitter divorced couple were so mad about the outcome that one of them used my work estimates to open up the settlement in an attempt to pickaxe a greater share out of the sale.

I've already signed up hundreds of thousands' worth of remediation and there's at least that much more but it's worth three times what I paid for it. I had a driveway guy come out yesterday and bid low because he wants to put his work on a magazine cover. I have an interior designer show up expecting to dismiss me after an hour but she left after four, misty-eyed. It's an absolutely magical house and I absolutely stole it. I'm a rich old man and I couldn't afford this house if I had to pay a third what it's worth. It is a legitimate, card-carrying, pedigreed, architecturally-significant mansion. The three of us will rattle around in there like beans in a can. That said, an architect pointed out that the design is so genius that "the house feels like it's hugging you everywhere you go." And the grounds are so bugshit that none of the plantings have needed any maintenance in the six months since they put it on the market. And there's about a third of an acre of them.

Coincidentally, my mother sent documents formally disowning me that i received about 30 seconds after having my offer accepted. Four days later my bank decided to let a guy in California withdraw $61k of my money. Apparently there's a threshold of bank fraud where the FBI gets involved. Prolly a bad day in Victorville. Wasn't so great up here.

So on the one hand I'm hearing things like "the driveway will take about a month" and "I'll throw in redoing the pool for free." On the other hand my parents don't even know about it, and maybe never will.

Sub Zero grows their own hydroponic lettuce. They take a fridge off the assembly line, plug it in, and put a head of lettuce in the crisper. If that lettuce is still fresh two weeks later, they take it out and feed it to alpacas. Then they box up the fridge and ship it to your dealer, who ordered it for you two or three months ago. This is how they convince you to spend Honda money on a fucking refrigerator.

But when everyone you talk to about refinishing the floors brings up Dwell Magazine unprompted, you start to recognize that the house deserves a fucking Subzero.

I have four heat pumps. When you look up the house on PVWatts you have to zoom out. But when you tell solar people you're not putting their Elon Musk bullshit in your house when Leviton is right there they ghost you.

And the Ketra people?

Yeah. Don't tell them that you helped design the house in their puff piece. They don't really know how to sell to you if you aren't completely snowed.

Which is actually kind of a pain in the ass because the mad mutherfucker who built this place put in two sets of lights. He's got a whole set of lights and switches for warm white? And a whole set for cool white. There is probably no house on earth more suitable for their crazy expensive lighting solutions. But apparently they want the rich assholes who don't know anything except how to condescend to the rest of us, not the ones who ask questions about PCM drivers.

Just saw that the Democratic Party in Nevada is suing to keep RFK Jr. Off of the ballot even though he gathered enough signatures by more than 2x. They're saying that he cannot be on the ballot as an independent since he is still a registered democrat. If it works, other states will try too.

I am so disgusted by the DNC. Disgusting behavior. Out of one side of their mouths they say they're the protectors of democracy and the other side does all it can to suppress it. Shameful. Fuck Biden. Fuck Trump. We deserve so much better. On a positive note, saw Wilco the other night. Held my wife and daughters in my arms as they played a beautiful version of Jesus Etc. Was a cool moment that I will not forget.

I'm in Amsterdam. The weather is beautiful, the scenery magnificent and the beer excellent.

I'd forgotten how good Iain M Banks' Culture novels are.

I am dipping my toe into buddhism and sailing. We had a day out with our department where we went sailing on a lake for the afternoon. It was a thorougly enjoyable experience because it reminded me of when I was learning gliding eight years ago. You're on a vessel, subject to the whims of the wind going (vertically/horizontally), and have a few axes of control (flaps/sails). How well you fare is something you can only partially control; it's really a challenge of sensing what the wind does and being adaptable enough to lean into that. Some colleagues were frustrated by the fitful winds but I never was; the winds just are.

The interest in buddhism comes from watching an unreasonable amount of Dr. K videos and livestreams over the past year. I find his blend of clinical, (neuro)scientific and yogic/buddhist perspectives on mental health fascinating, and some of his videos have genuinely changed our lives. In one of his streams he shared his understanding of dharma and it made me curious to learn more, so now I'm reading the Dhammapada.