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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2457 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: August 2, 2017

(A) if you can get the money together for a piece of land, putting a cob house or lean-to or geodome or any of the other cheap forms of housing becomes much more attainable. Also, you can do it in your spare time while paying rent somewhere in the city or whatever. Look into the permaculture and homesteading subcultures because they're both populated by cheap-ass dreamers without any particular need for luxury.

(B) televisions are cheap these days and surround systems are cheaper. I put a 50" 4K in the birth center for $550 and the surround rig, which has legit in-walls, was like $400. Home-theater-in-a-box systems can be had for under $150. Just make it cool with your roommates and start doing the hosting thing - even if all you have is a shitty 19" television and a nine year old DVD player. Don't wait on stuff to do things with people.

(C) one of my favorite movies is The Terrorist which was shot MOS and overdubbed (not well). So in addition to being subtitled from Tamil it's also over-timed colorwise and has this really sloppy slip between lips and sound. It makes for a trance-like viewing experience.





steve  ·  2457 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Don't wait on stuff to do things with people.

PREACH (and amen)

WanderingEng  ·  2457 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    if you can get the money together for a piece of land

I'm kind of serious about doing this. I'm not quite ready, but the more I look at it, the more I like it. There's an intriguing plot about 30 minutes north of town. I should email the realtor and ask if they know if it's buildable.

kleinbl00  ·  2457 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You can learn a lot simply by looking at what the zoning codes are, what the setbacks are, what the wetlands protections are and where the utilities are. The realtor should be able to give you where all the utilities are; that certainly adds expense but isn't insurmountable. The USDA, if I recall correctly, has all sorts of floodplain info as well as what sort of soil type you have there and what you can grow.

My experience has been that places that look too good to be true tend to be. I was looking at one spot that didn't sell despite having dozens of acres of land... turns out the dwelling was within the 100-year floodplain and was effectively red-tagged by county code (no permits would ever be issued for improvements or expansion). I was looking at another that claimed there was ample room for subdivision... turns out the structure itself was within wetlands protection zones and could never be expanded (let alone subdivided). I was looking at still another that looked all kinds of great... until i discovered that the previous owner had cut down a lot of trees and the entire property was out of compliance with county code such that it had an entail of $500/day fines stretching back to 2011.

But all this shit is free to learn and will teach you more and more about what you like and what you don't and what you want to see.

You'll excuse me if that was incoherent. The margarita plan won out.

WanderingEng  ·  2456 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That was very coherent. Thank you.

    My experience has been that places that look too good to be true tend to be

This is probably true about the one plot I was eyeing. Six acres across the road from the Wisconsin River. But it's very up hill. I suspect it's not buildable due to access issues. A road abuts the property, but the slope looks steep on topography maps.