#39 - A dudes day

Sunday, February 12

Today I am thankful for my brother.  He's somebody I like to hang out with.

I went to church this morning, got re-introduced, and got a better feel for the ward here.  There are certainly some differences - some people willing to point out that Nephi did not write much in the way of his own character flaws in his own history.  That he might really have been overwhelmed by the enormity of his father's death, and what that meant for him and his family.  Many other things came to mind that don't belong here, so I won't put them here.

I met Tim at the Poughkeepsie train station at 12:30.  We had a nice lunch at the Hyde Park Diner.  Filling, not too expensive, and completely unhurried.  We then visited a potential house buy in Hyde Park.  It's a huge place.  Huge.  Seriously, embarrassingly huge.  On almost 7 acres.  And we could buy it.  But it has only 1 usable tub/shower, no kitchen at all (no cabinets, no appliances, no fittings), some of the rooms are missing heating components, the lights are removed, etc etc.  It's in great shape except for all the stuff that was ripped out.  In Tim's words: "This looks like the intended summer home of a Wall Streeter who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge a few years ago."  It does appear to be exactly that.  The house is cheap, but would need a lot of investment to make the main floors completely usable.  The bottom floor needs another set of investment to be completely usable.  When the whole place is done, it will be awesome.  Also, it has a creek running through its almost 7 acres.  All in all, it is stunning, and would be a TON of work for us for about 2 years.  And then it would be great.  No need to ever upgrade again.

Have I mentioned that I love it here?

After this house, I took us by the factory where our equipment is, and my new office building.  We couldn't go in, of course.  Then we saw another house we like.  I was only intending to show him the outside, but it was Open House day, so we took a tour.  Tim liked house #1 better.  I'm not sure yet.  There are certainly pluses and minuses to both places.

Then we went into Fahnestock park again.  This time, we drove down to the beach.  Never in my life did I expect to see a ice-encrusted beach of white sand.  But there it was.  Lots of hiking trails and things there, but it was 34 deg and windy.  Not exactly hiking weather.  By this time it Tim needed to head home.  Cold Spring was the closest train station, so we went there, and I think he did not have to wait long for the train to come.

All in all, a very nice day.  Learned some good things, spend some great time with my brother.  I'm tired now.  I have a couple phone calls to make, and then I'm going to sleep.  What a nice weekend.  I hope this next week of work will be a little less tiring.  Time will tell.