Sold - Farm 61 in Olivebridge NY
We had the honor and pleasure of selling on of our new farmhouses today, a 3 bedroom 1.5 bath marvel, with a finished well-lit basement that added another 600 sq ft, and a bathroom.
The home sits on 4+ acres, and has plenty of porch and deck to enjoy. We started this home as a spec home, meaning without a prearranged buyer - a type of 'if we build it, they will come' sort of thing. Come they did, and the young couple who purchased it should be pretty comfy in their snazzy little home in Ulster County NY. I mean, these homes are really neat, and you don't have to take my word for it since one could say I'm biased - the marketplace over and over says it when they come back onto the market - they sell quick, they sell for good money. Over and over. The amount of money - realtors, homeowners, contractors, pool guys, gardeners, landscapers, tax collectors - is really unfathomable in its immenseness.
I think my friend Rob in one of my cottages call it the 'economic cross-multiplier' - which I'm sure is a common term for all you hoyti toyti business school grads (or actually grads that learned much in college) - but to me, it was a new phrase that encapsulated what I knew for a fact - that day to day, year to year, decade to decade - that the impact on the economic vibrancy of these towns we work in is, frankly, gigantic.
Congrats to the new owners. Welcome to the 'hood. Sold for the mid $500's, all in, including land, permitting, house construction and basement buildout.
2020 Election, Part Deux
Let me get this argument straight for my own benefit. The same vote that saw the Democrats get smashed country-wide in the House, and gain little in the Senate, and sustained many State and Local Republicans, that same vote, that same ballot, for the President was somehow fraudulently cast? Is that the gist of the argument? Seems weak and non-sensical, and logistically hard to pull off.
But the close races - jeez - Arizona by 10,000 (maybe Trump shouldn't have attacked John McCain), Georgia by 15,000 (maybe Trump shouldn't toned down his racist leanings), Wisconsin, PA. While the overall popular vote was pretty large in Biden's favor, the State's that 'matter' weren't, other than Michigan.
It's a shame this criminal Trump can't celebrate the awesome feat of American Democracy, where 150,000,000 million people voted, and the voted smoothly and waited in lines for hours, and braved a pandemic, and participated in the process by volunteering - on both sides.
Although polling is being disparaged right now, It's actually fascinating to look back on how much good information these candidates had. Trump knew mail-in ballots would raise turnout and that was bad for him (hence post office and legal shenanigans), Biden knew the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Wisconson and Minnesota were critical to his success and also knew Georgia was more likely than Florida. Trump knew it was going to be close, and that the counts would take time, and that would be the period he could sow chaos - so he and his minions prevailed on Republican controlled state legislators in PA and others NOT to change their laws and start counting mail-in ballots early. It's just amazing how these campaigns - Trumps especially - were gaming this out, saw the writing on the walls (suburban women), and used all their levers of power to disrupt it. I mean, who messes with the Post Office? Who actually knew the Post Office could be messed with? There's a genius in that, but nothing to be respected or taught to our children.
It's ridiculous the way some on the right are claiming 'victimhood'. Let's add this up - you have $1,000,000,000 war chest, you have the power of the incumbency which can't be overstated, you have right-wing radio more or less an arm of your campaign, you have Fox News and their commentators, you have all the levers of power to mess with the institutions that keep things straight, you have the bully pulpit and earned media (unpaid news coverage) from your daily press conferences, you have gigantic rallies, you have a motivated electorate, you have a large segment of first time voters coming out, you turn out the vote, and you still lose, and it's the other sides fault because it's rigged?
Because the polls were off. Because the lamestream media didn't give you credit for anything (here's a tip - people you punch in the nose everyday aren't going to be friendly). How sad. It's very clear Trump turned off a fair amount of decent people who couldn't deal with his daily antics and insults, were embarrassed for their children, were tired of Trump being part of their daily lives with his tweets and fights. Although good article in Today's Post about how White Evangelical Christians played a disproportionate part in his turnout - which is gross, since he is clearly the least Christian man who has held that office.
I'm looking forward to Boring Biden, who respects policy, surrounds himself with experts, and puts our Country's needs before his needs. Mostly, I look forward to people like my mom, and there are millions of them, who aren't stressed each and everyday by the unacceptable behavior of their President, and allowing them to return to their lives, to live unburdened by the need to defend or attack on a daily basis behavior they would never accept from a teacher, a friend, a coach or a man of the cloth.
2020 Election
Wow, that was quite the October in terms of political chaos, unexpected twists and turns (Philly shooting, protests, and looting, Pres gets covid, Pres does 18 events in 4 days), but we seem to be on the back side of it, regardless of the tactics of some of the politicians and their media mouthpieces on the right assert.
Took my son and a friend to Philly to see what democracy looks like.
I'm in a position where each and every day I interact with persons across the political spectrum, and what is interesting is I read a stat a week or two ago that claimed that 70%+ of people do not interact or even know someone who is not in their political silo. I don't believe everything I read, and polls are under great scrutiny, but even if it was half that, I would still see it as an astonishing data piece and explains a lot.
I go out of my way to get information from a wide range of sources - magazines, newspapers, news, radio, random apps like tik tok and instagram. Too much information lately, where by the time election rolled around my phone reported a daily use of screen time of 8+ hrs!!!! I don't really know how they measure that - is listening to a podcast screen time? Or a newscast, or call in radio show? I hope so, though I admit I have a newbie energy level for tik tok - guiltfree too, since I think it's really fun, and lack of guilt makes it all the more dangerous. Keep an eye out for my tik tok shuffle I'm working on.
As a builder, in the niche I occupy, I interact with a wide range of persons, as I said above. I sell homes in upstate (rural and red) to the coastal elite (families from NYC and mostly blue), I work everyday with a range of subcontractors and employees (red) and I also work with surveyors, engineers, lawyers, accountants who are educated, many times male and a tad older and harder to pigeon hole into a political generalization (purple).
It's a fascinating vantage point - with a ton of information and preferences and actions coming from all sides. What is true today, if you turn off the news, most people I'm interacting with have moved on, accepted the results, and are now in the process of putting politics back where it always was - white noise in the background, instead of a daily test of how loud can you support your candidate.
Late last week, as the counts were drip drip dripping in, and cable news was doing a great job of narrating the drama when nothing much was happening, I attempted to go news free for a day. When that didn't happen, I tried for a couple of hours. When that didn't happen, I tried for an hour. Waking up in the middle of the night, refreshing my phone, praying for a non-trump headline. Back in 2016, I went to sleep only to wake up, check the results, and was as shocked as the next guy, and not in a good way. Anyways, I finally on Monday started to create some distance between me and the news, and now I'm trying to check in at the end of the day for the Arizona counts, and other stuff. Nothing much changes hour to hour, so for me at least, checking in less is better, and actually just as informative. Not easy though. Everyone has their TV on to the news.
You have to wonder how long Arizona is going to be at 98% counted? They've been stuck there for a week, and you have really get a kick out of Fox News' premature call of that state, since now it is down to 14,000 votes. What a stake through the heart of Trump's election night momentum.
It's like the Trump Show is truly afraid of what comes next for it. How can you make an argument with a straight face of stopping the count in Georgia and PA, continuing to count in Arizona, claiming that the tight races they are losing are fraudulent but not a word about the close races they won, no introspection into last election, just as tight, with voting done with the same rules, but turned in their favor?
You can make the argument because you know your support is wide, and 2 subsets of that support are the following - people with something political at stake, and non-college educated voters, many of whom are drowning in their chosen sources of information, echoing and repeating a small and selected slice of the day's news.
And let's admit it - education matters. Education gives you empathy, perspective, hope, a baseline of comparing today with other days/times.
Also, from what I saw, Trump turned out the vote. I don't have the data, but I wouldn't be highly surprised if first time voters and 'low propensity' voter counts were large and unprecendented. Trump motivated people to vote who don't regularly participate in the political process. I think the trouble there, however, is these people won't continue to vote, won't be regular voters, and will go back to not participating. Their enthusiasm for Trump is not easily transferable to just any state or national candidate. In fact, just the opposite.
More Drone Pics
New drone pics in late fall. Great work of the new zone with these new perspectives.
