In July my youngest and I bought a house near his campus, and he is now renting out three rooms. My observations so far:

1. Finding good housemates is not necessarily easy in a college town.

2. Sure, there are plenty of people around who want to live a block from campus

3. But how do you know that any of them actually have any money?

4. Ordinarily you can check employment background for tenants, and maybe even run a credit check. But what do you do for college students?

5. My 19-year old son so far is doing a great job just by using Craigslist.

6. Four people have moved in, including one girl that only stayed a bit over a month.

7. She ended up moving in with friends, which was fine with me, because she just seemed like a party girl who apparently was seldom there except to change clothes. She finished every sentence with a giggle. How long can anyone take that?

8. She was replaced by a more serious student guy whose Mom is paying his expenses. I think he is a senior.

9. One other guy is married (spouse is in California) and trying to finish a dissertation

10. He wanted to go "month to month" on the rent, but knowing how dissertations sometimes go, I am thinking of it as more year-to-year

11. He was the first roommie to sign on back in the summer, and he is a nice guy. He likes to party on weekends, but not at the house, he just goes out with friends.

12. One of my little worries in this whole process was putting my son in a position where everybody else at his house might be bringing in alcohol, etc. So far,no problems.

13. Last roommie is a 25 year old woman with a full-time job on-line, and she is also completing her degree. So she is very busy and pretty focused which is really good. She also seems kind of level-headed and likes to get everybody motivated to tidy up once a week or so.

14. So, that's good.

15. This week their dryer went out. Son was supposed to try to call someone to look at it, but we haven't talked to him yet to find out what happened.

16. Two weekends ago we figured out how to turn on the furnace, a boiler for baseboard rediators. We just had to turn a setting to ON instead of PILOT. Toasty-toasty. The house actually has two thermostats for heat, and another for A/C, which is a lot considering it is a small house. The second heat thermostat is in one of he bedrooms, and I tried to talk the 25-year -old into moving into that room when it opened up so she would have the heat control for that end of the house.

17. She didn't want to hassle with moving everything even though it is a slightly bigger room (and she has several tons of belongings).

18. She is the only roommie not to find us using Craigslist. Instead she just showed up across the street, scheduled to move in to a small house which has had some tree damage. Due to allergies she couldn't even walk in their front door, and she and her three family vehicles worth of stuff were standing around wondering what to do next. She liked our house a lot better. 

18. We installed "real" lock doorknobs on two of the bedrooms, so we had to learn how to drill out a doorknob hole which was kind of fun. My son's room is at the opposite end of the house from the other bedrooms and he doesn't really have a real door. It is like a homemade door, from knotty pine paneling which is what his walls are as well. (In August we washed and primed them with two coats of primer which took a while with all the grooves in the panels. Then he painted the walls a pastel green with white trim. )

19. He did a really good job with all the painting in the house. It took a few weeks late in the summer but it was worth it, because the house was so dated. Now it looks fresh and inviting.

20. The only rooms that we didn't paint were the small stone porch (because it doesn't really have regular walls), and the kitchen which has wallpaper. It's a horrible pattern from the 80s, but it wasn't damaged or dirty or anything, just dated, and we left it because we just couldn't do everything in one month to get things ready. The kitchen was the room where we did the least work, in fact I think the ony thing we did was attach the countertops to the base cabinets. They were loose, just sitting there which was probably not a big problem for the elderly lady that had lived there for many years. College guys are a little harder on the facilities.

21. In addition to the kitchen, the house has a utility room with storage, the four bedrooms, a small living room, a dining area off the living room, the enclosed porch, a carport for two vehicles, and a fairly large backyard with two storage sheds. There is also a side yard and a small front yard.

22. Trees shade the front and south side, and there is a porch swing, although it's not on the porch. It just sits next to the front door. Thatt sounds funny, and it looks a little goofy, but on the other hand, a lot of housing near campus has funkier stuff than that sitting around. The porch s wing is really nice to relax on after you have worked hard all day and you are waiting to go to dinner while everyone finishes showering. The gin & tonic is nice, too..

How do you get a HOLE to catch on fire, you ask? Especially one with water in it? Well . . . it was probably the fault of the guy who originally installed the sump pump last June. I happen to know that he doesn't like working in a crawl space that doesn't allow you to stand up straight, plus it's not that good for his back, plus he was in a hurry that day and he probably just dropped the new pump into the hole and expected it to work just fine for the next fifteen years or so. (He makes a lot of assumptions like that.)

It was a lttle before midnight on Friday night. I was gone at a conference out of town and had just finished the work stuff and ordered a beer with some coworkers when my phone rang. It was my son saying their house was filling with smoke, they had searched for the source and it was coming from the crawl space. There is only one thing down there, so we both knew it had to be the sump pump.

My son asked what they should do (his housemate and another friend were there watching movies) and I told him to call the fire department. He didn't want to do that. I told him that I don't want the house to burn down, but he said he thought they could put it out with some water. I was afraid of the Electrical Fire + Water = Not Too Good factor, but he quickly found a flashlight, pulled the main house electrical breaker, and got some water running. Then he and his friends made a little bucket brigade of large kitchen pans and they put out the fire by pouring water onto it.

The house was smoky but not charred. The only actual damage was the sump pit itself which has (had) a plastic liner and cover. They were melted and burned.

Next day we got an estimate from a plumber guy who thought that we would be willing to pay thousands of dollars for the pit to be redug and relined. He also thought he might charge $1700 for a sump pump.

We ended up with "friend of a friend" plumber doing the work for about $600. It only took a couple of hours, plus materials. And a new pump.

We recently had a new roof installed. Just in case you might be thinking about having this done at YOUR house I provide these step-by-step instructions for how to do this the RIGHT way.

1. Go outside and look at your roof. If you have to look way up in order to see it then you can just go ahead and wait a few more years. That roof's still doing fine. However, if you can just look around in the grass and find stray shingles lying around at your feet then start collecting them up. Take a real good look at them to see if they're in good enough shape to reuse.

2. Decide if you want your roof pieces protecting your lawn. We decided we would rather have then up on top of the house.

3. Do extensive research on the best roofing companies in your area. For instance, ask your neighbor who did HIS roof. Write down the company name so you don't forget, because that is NOT the outfit you want up on your roof. At least judging by the crooked rows of shingles covering the backside of their garage. Which of course is not the side they look at. But which IS the side that we look at.

4. Whenever you see a roofing crew working anywhere near your neighborhood write down the phone number that's on the truck.

5. First, make sure they have a truck though.

6. Let your wife call the companies. She's good at making appointments.

7. When the roof guy actually comes to the house let him look around. He'll want to go into the attic. (Apparently the roof is right on the other side of the attic.) He'll look around for telltale signs that your roof is beginning to wear. For instance, sparrows using your attic for birdbaths would be a bad sign.

8. Invite him to have a seat in the living room, and get him some water while he catches his breath. It's hard work checking people's roofs.

9. Listen to stories about how he met his wife and why they named their two children their special names.

10. Watch carefully as he makes a drawing of what your roof looks like.

11. Watch ESPECIALLY carefully while he makes another drawing of what it's supposed to look like.

12. Feel proud when he compliments you on the features of your roof which were built well thirty years ago.

13. As if you had anything to do with it.

14. Frown in a concerned fashion when he brings up price.

15. Do NOT be distracted when he mentions those cute kids again and how much fun they had when they went on vacation. Seven years ago, the last time they could afford it.

16. Chuckle aloud as he tells you about the time he and his spouse began throwing water onto each other and ended up in a hose fight.

17. Wonder whether he is coming on to you and YOUR wife when he notices the hose outdoors.

18. Give him the contract anyway.

19. Pick out the shingle color and style. Ask everyone you know what they think might look good on your house. Be sure to go with the "fifty year" shingles. No, that is not how long it takes to make up your minds, that is how long they are supposed to last. Unless it rains. Or you have a windy day or something. Those both lessen the warranty. Notify the company that you are ready to go.

20. Wait in Roof Limbo. You'll want to be notified when the roof guys will actually do the work. Regularly change the pages on your refrigerator calendar.

21. Eventually, let their office know when your family needs to take off on a trip. So they don't pull up in front of the house with the roof stuff and nobody's home.

22. Wait some more. Hey the weather is nice. Why worry? In the meantime, buy another house.

23. No, wait, I don't mean buy another house to move into. I just mean buy another house in your son's college town so he can go to school there with housemates paying all of his living expenses. Consider this extremely wise.

24. Be sure the house deal uses up every last cent of both money and credit available to you, because the ECONOMY TOTALLY TANKS and no one will loan more equity dollars even though you so clearly deserve them.

25. Begin hoping that the roof guys DON'T show up.

26. Look outside the next morning and watch a large truck deliver a dumpster to your driveway.

27. Guess that means the roof must be coming pretty soon. Because this driver doesn't work for the roof company and has no clue. He just drives dumpsters.

28. Begin learning Ukranian. Because everyone else you see from now on speaks either Russian or Ukrainian. And Ukrainian is easier.

29. Suddenly remember that you told the roof guy (the one who spoke English really well and whose wife is still standing around soaking wet from their hose war) that you wanted them to replace some boards that trim the roof and that are difficult to reach with ladders, and that you also told him that you would go ahead and buy the boards ahead of time so you could prime them and have them all ready to go.

30. Go outside in the dark with a tape measure and pretend to measure how long those boards probably are. Just stand on the ground and take a good look, because it's already dark out and you still need to go over to the Home Depot store to buy them. And you better get some more primer too, because you left the primer at the new college house along with all of your paintbrushes.

31. Except the old grungy ones.

32. Buy some boards that you think you are pretty sure might be the right size.

33. Get up early the next day and prime those boards before you go to work. Skip breakfast.

33. Three days later: marvel at the speed with which your old roof ends up inside said dumpster. It is faster than you could have peeled boiled eggs for breakfast.

34. Go to work as if it is a regular day, even though Ukrainian guys have torn the roof off of your house by 7 a.m.

35. Worry about how many plywood roof sheets they will decide need to be replaced. At $90 apiece. Leave all those decisions up to the Ukrainian guys.

36. Come home as early as possible and watch the little motorized ladder thing run shingle bundles up to the roof. Wish you had one of those things the last time (fifteen years ago) that you yourself actually worked on a roof and had to carry shingle bundles up a ladder on your shoulder.

37. Listen to the pop-pop-pop sound of the power nailer and wish you had one of those back then also.

38. Try to ask the crew chief about the extra roof boards still leaning on the picnic table in the backyard. All primed and everything. Wish you'd practiced more Ukrainian, because although he speaks three languages English isn't one of them.

39. Watch as all the pickup trucks drive away before it is even supper time. One last guy is walking around with a magnet roller trying to find loose nails dropped into the grass around the house. He doesn't even speak Ukrainian. The primed boards are still on the picnic table.

40. Try to find a good vantage point to actually see how the new roof looks. Cross the street and try to look through the tree branches to see if the shingles look good. Be surprised that there really isn't a good spot where you can actually see the roof clearly, at least until the leaves drop in the fall. Watch as the last magnet guy drives away.

41. Plan ahead: waiting until it rains so you can check out how great the new roof really is. But then watch as the storm of the decade pounds the Midwest and your county is declared a disaster area. Totally forget to give the roof a thought, because water is pouring into one of the basement window wells in a manner you have never seen before, because the backyard is so saturated. Begin siphoning water out of the window well and into buckets in the basement, because the window well drain cannot keep up with the flow.

42. Form a little bucket brigade with spouse taking turns dumping water into the basement toilet.

43. When the rain stops? Remember about the roof and feel good that it was watertight through the whole storm.

44. When the roof bill comes feel good that the whole thing got done well at a reasonable price. Then begin wondering how you are going to pay the bill. Because you already spent all your money on a different house. And college tuition is due. Along with the last installment of property taxes.

45. Call the roof company (let your spouse do this part because she is good at making appointments, remember?) and ask about those extra primed boards they said would be no problem to take care of.

46. Feel sort of satisfied when they send a guy to take care of them two weeks later.

47. But not as satisfied as if you had actually measured the right lengths (a month before) in the dark.

48. Go up on the new roof to paint the finish trim color on the primed boards. Look around at how great the roof looks. And how perfect it is when it is all brand new. Vow to never let a tree branch brush your brand new shingles.

49. Feel terrible when your brush drips. Even though no one will ever see the little drips.

50. Stop blogging when you have one item for each year. Of your brand new shingles.

Impossible, you say? Yes, it is an unlikely scenario, but here is how it really COULD happen:

First, there would have to be a tie in the Electoral College vote. This is the vote that actually elects the US President, not the normal popular vote. (For anyone totally unfamiliar: the US has 50 states which each get a proportional vote for President called the Electoral College. In order to be elected the winning candidate must get a MAJORITY of the Electortal College vote, not a majority of the popular vote.)

Second, the House of Representatives would have to vote in Obama as President. (In case of a tie vote the election gets thrown into the House.) In this process each state gets only one vote and since the Democrats control the House right now the Obama victory would be expected.

Third, the Senate would have to deadlock 50-50 on the Vice-President choice. (In case of tie the Senate gets to elect the VP.) This possibility is not unlikely, because although the Democrats have a 51-49 advantage in the Senate that includes Joe Lieberman, an Independent-Democrat who has come out in favor of the McCain-Palin ticket. If he does vote for Palin then there would be a 50-50 tie. Guess who votes in case of a tie in the Senate?

Dick Cheney, current V-P, breaks the tie. He votes for Palin, and she becomes Vice-President while Obama is President.

Weird, but true.

It's the Hunter's Moon this month, but a pretty early one. With the warm weather we are experiencing in the Midwest it seems even earlier as the air has been almost summery. The annual Hunter's Moon is supposed to be close to hunting season for northern climates, time for deer and turkeys and so forth. Those hunting seasons generally fall in November. Oh well. I'm not a hunter anyway.

Or am I?

I suppose there are things that I AM hunting for. Serenity, maybe. Or a good challenge. A way to give life extra meaning. Good authors, always hunting for those. A way to explain to the skeptical why our government needs to take a new direction. And why a certain Illinois senator is well-qualified to lead.

What are YOU hunting for right now?

I would love if everyone would leave a short comment about the their own personal top three. And I promise I won't make smart-ass comments about them.