This isn’t the actual “sold” sign from my new townhouse, but you get the point

The common theme, though, was the unstable relationship between my finances and my housing situation. What I mean by this is that by not owning the different locations where I’ve lived over the years I was at the mercy of externalities that could (and did) have a direct impact on both my housing stability and my personal finances. For example, if one of my roommates decided to (or had to) leave in the middle of a lease, then their leaving would increase my monthly expenses by a factor based on how many other roommates I had at the time. In other words, an expense that should have been “fixed” in my personal budget was always at risk of increasing based on externalities that were outside of my control.

As a guy who works in finance and who is a maniacal manager of my personal finances, I don’t like it when I’m not in control of my long-term fixed costs and, by consequence, other financial stability-related issues.

At the end of February 2014, my now-former roommate told me that he was finally hired by a group that he had been hoping to get a job with for the past few years. This was a tremendous success for him and a really good, positive moment. This was also a good moment for me because I had been searching the “for sale” listings for a few months at the time that this news came around. In a different scenario, I would have been at my wits’ end trying to find a way to piece together a new living situation. However, after paying off my student loans and feeling financially free since August 2013, I was ready to purchase a home.

The stability that I received in my personal finances from paying off those student loans was great. Yet, it also made it abundantly apparent that I needed to stop renting and buy a home sooner rather than later. Given the high cost of owning a home in New Jersey (if you’re reading this from a state other than New Jersey, you don’t want me to start going into our property taxes), it was always a smarter move for me to live with at least one roommate instead of buying a home of my own. Over the years, though, certain things change. One example of the things that changed is that I’ve gotten older over the years and with that age has come a certain rigidness in what I want in my home. I like what I like and don’t want to be bothered with whatever annoys me! When you live with a roommate, you have to share space and sometimes you can get annoyed by what your roommate does without even thinking about it. Maybe you don’t want to watch the same show on the television or maybe you don’t want to wait for your roommate to finish making breakfast/lunch/dinner so you can get into the kitchen to fix yourself some food. Perhaps you’re not a fan of the state that your roommate leaves the kitchen in when they’re done making their food. The list can go on and on.

This isn’t to say that I haven’t had a wonderful group of roommates over the years. Rather, this is all to reiterate the point that as you get older you change. And as I got older I slowly segregated myself from the entire townhouse that I lived in to just living out of my bedroom. Imagine a very dorm-like situation – I would wake up, shower, and prepare for work all in the same room. When I got home from work, I grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and then headed to my room to catch up on the day’s news, do some work for my small businesses, and then eventually go to bed… just to perform a very similar routine the next day.

I won’t get too deep into the process of buying a house here, but suffice to say that I found a place nearby where I live now that I felt was priced right. I struck a deal with the owner for a few thousand less than the townhouse was on the market for and we’ve were out of attorney review quickly. The home inspection was done and came back stellar, the appraisal was completed and the value is right where I thought it would be and my mortgage company was lined up and ready to fund me. In the space of about a month, I was able to go through the entire searching and closing process. Not too bad.

For the few weeks that I worked through this process, I had a chance to consider how I want to arrange the 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath townhouse that I bought. I had a chance to consider what I want to do with the garage that is attached to it, what I want to do with the living room, dining room, and eat-in kitchen. I also had a chance to think about which family events I want to host on an annual basis and which events I want to host for my friends in the area. Another aspect that I considered is how I wanted to furnish the place and that’s another aspect of the townhouse that I thought about during the closing process. Luckily, my sister-in-law’s twin sister is an interior designer and she came in to help me choose colors, textures, furniture, and more!

Buying a house was a fun time and not such a bad idea. Plus, I now get to write these blog entries from the comfort of my personal home office – which is fully separate and apart from my bedroom and living space!

A typical dorm room picture that I pulled off of the interwebs

I bring up this discrepancy in age versus real-life experiences because of my recent purchase of a new home. I have yet to write about the purchase, though I’m working on a blog entry that describes much of my reasoning for buying a home. More on that to come. In the meantime, though, I didn’t want to miss out on sharing some of the great experiences that I’ve had getting used to my new place. Take this post, for example. I’ve noticed that since I now own and live in a three bedroom, two-and-a-half bath townhouse (complete with a living room, dining area, kitchen, another eat-in dining area, and garage), that I’ve been living a very dormitory lifestyle up until this move. In other words, my prior apartments – and pretty much my living arrangements since I moved from home to go to college back in Fall 1999 – have been either directly in dormitories or closely resembling dormitories.

And that got me to thinking whether or not that was actually a true statement/thought and – for better or worse – it really is true. Just thinking about the last place I lived before I bought this place, I lived much of my life in my bedroom. This was easy to accomplish because my bedroom had a large walk-in closet where I could put all of my stuff and a master bathroom where I could use the facilities if necessary. I never spent any time in the living room because it was filthy (the rug was a disaster and the landlord refused to change it, plus the furniture wasn’t mine or my roommates’ so we didn’t have any connection to anything in there) and I never spent any time in the kitchen because it was an extremely dated room with a dated feel to it. The interior of the place I just moved out of was pale and drab – my roommates and I didn’t really paint the place because we didn’t own the house. The carpets were old and cruddy throughout the house, but I was able to salvage some semblance of normalcy by restricting my “living space” to my bedroom alone. I had a small office area set up in one part of the room, all of my clothes crammed into the closet, and a small entertainment center area next to the office area.

It worked.

I didn’t realize until I moved into my new home and started to make the new place my own that I had been restricting myself to living in a dorm-like lifestyle by staying in the old townhouse as long as I stayed there. Just to help provide some substance to the time I spent as a renter in the old townhouse – I moved in there in July 2008 and I moved out in May 2014. That’s nearly 6 years living as a de facto prisoner in my own bedroom!

Now that I’m in my new place, I’ve painted every room in the house except a half-bathroom on the first floor. I’ve started to fill my garage with my belongings with plans to retrieve more of my belongings from my Mother’s house and bring them down here so I have them in my possession. I’ve started growing vegetables and herbs in the area outside of the sliding glass doors in my eat-in kitchen. I’ve purchased brand new furniture and furnished my living room with a brand new coffee table, two new matching end tables, two new lamps, a brand new sofa, and a brand new loveseat. I’ve outfitted my dining room with a brand new dining room table with six chairs (and plans to buy two more dining room chairs). I purchased a brand new bedroom set complete with two end tables and a dresser for my bedroom. In my master bathroom, I’ve laid down new carpet runners along the jacuzzi and outside of the double sink and I also installed a brand new shaving station mirror as well as a deep medicine cabinet. I also installed my television above the gas fireplace in my living room, which sits in front of the new area rug that I bought from IKEA along with a very large piece of art for the wall from the same store.

The point here is that I’m living in the entire house versus living in one room of a house. At the end of the accounting, it is more expensive to buy and live in a house by yourself versus living with roommates in a shared house or townhouse. However, the ability to customize the space you live in to turn a house into a home is priceless.

Remember when I paid off my student loans?

Now I’m not going to go into another discussion here about how I paid off my student loans and you can, too. Lord knows I’ve written enough about that stuff that if you really wanted to learn how I was able to pay off those loans and pay them off quickly, then you can find that information on the blog.

And yet, I was struck by my buddy’s utter shock at my having paid off my student loans. And this had me thinking about something for the rest of that night and for the days since the auction ended. Namely, there are some people in life who are victims and there are other people in life who are victors. I’m not suggesting that my buddy is a victim. In fact, he’s the furthest thing from a victim.

There are people out there, though, who look at the hand they were dealt and hang their shoulders in defeat; they essentially turn into Droopy. They may as well turn around and ask everyone to go ahead and kick them in the ass. That’s the victim mindset. That’s the mindset that takes whatever the world gives you and says, “Oh, I was hoping for something better. But okay. I guess this will do.”

It won’t do, damn it! Be a victor! Be someone who makes their own way on this planet. If you don’t like the hand that you’re dealt, then get a new hand. If you don’t like the new hand, then stop playing that game and get up and make something else of your life! We are all the end result of the various choices that we make – choose to be a victor. Choose to be the person with their hand raised at the end of the fight. Choose to win!

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve made many mistakes and I’ve not always made the choices that led me to be the victor at the end of a particular fight. But when it came to student loans I made a conscious decision that I was winning this fight. In fact, I made the decision that I wasn’t just going to be the victor, I was going to be the conqueror! And I was…

Throw your excuses to the side and make this world your own. Be a victor – the choice is yours!

Smallville
I’m a big Smallville fan, but I’m not a fan of how they break up the seasons each year. This year they went from January to the end of February, took off for March, and then started up again in April. What’s the point in doing that? It doesn’t make any sense? Anyway, I like the way that Smallville is trying to focus more on the actual comic book relationship to the series and less on the stupid, cheesy storylines. The more that they move in that direction, then the better and brighter this show’s ratings future becomes. Speaking of ratings, Smallville is one of those shows that gets a big bump each week thanks to people who DVR the show and watch within 7 days of the recording. Just goes to show you how new technology helps to keep good shows on the air!

Lost
I was talking to my Mom the other day and I said that the first season of Lost will probably go down as the best single season of a show in the history of television. That show had people riveted to its every move and plot twist – watching the show was actually fun! These days, though, while I like that we’re only a few episodes away from the grand finale, I’m annoyed that there is no possible way for the writers to address every single storyline and loose end before the show goes off the air.

So, while the first season of this show will probably go down in history as the best season of television ever, the last few seasons have to go down in history as a major disappointment. And how do you kill off Sun, Jin, and Sayeed? Good grief…

Fringe
I love it. This show is amazing. The idea that there is another universe that parallels our own should be enough to make any science fiction nerd happy. But showing that alternate universe and the relationship that it has with our own is what Fringe does best. Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, and John Noble are out of this world (pardon the pun) in terms of their performances. A better cast couldn’t have been assembled for this show. My only concern about the future of this show is that it was created by and is currently executive produced by J.J. Abrams. Why might this be a problem? Well, Abrams created Lost and, well, see my review above…

24
On the one hand, it’s sad to see Jack Bauer and Chloe Sullivan canceled after this season, but on the other hand I think that this is the best thing for the show. In reality, there is only so much that you can do in terms of terror plots that have to cover 24 separate episodes. If I’m not mistaken it has already been confirmed that there is a 24 movie in the works, so that’s good news.

This season, I was shocked that they showed the aftermath of the assassination of Omar Hassan (played by the guy who was the game show host in Slumdog Millionaire). That made for some shocking entertainment television. I was also surprised that they killed off Renee Walker right after she and Bauer began a romantic relationship – I didn’t see that coming. However, I was glad to see good old Kara Thrace (the character’s name in Battlestar Galactica) a.k.a. Dana Walsh (real name Katee Sackhoff) added as a member of the cast. Okay, sure, she winds up being a bad guy and a mole for the Russians, but she’s one hell of an actress.

TNA iMPACT!
Well, if you know me then you know that I’m a wrestling fan. Sure, I’m not as big of a fan as I used to be and I don’t regularly watch the shows (thank God for DVRs), but I still get some enjoyment out of the “male soap operas” that are professional wrestling shows. For a variety of reasons, I’m not really interested in watching WWE any more. Not only has the show fallen to a PG rating (and thus puts out a product a bit below my age group), but I’m sick and tired of seeing some of the same people over and over again (Triple H comes to mind).

TNA, on the other hand, is showcasing some pretty great talent in Abyss and A.J. Styles. They’re also bringing us Desmond Wolfe, D’Angelo Dinero, Rob Van Dam, Jeff Hardy, and any other number of great performers that are getting to rub elbows with wrestling legends Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair in on-camera appearances. For that reason alone I enjoy watching TNA’s flagship show iMPACT! However, if you actually sit down and watch the show for what it is – as a fan of sports entertainment – you really see how entertaining the overall product can be. TNA recently decided to retreat to Thursday nights after trying to take on WWE’s Monday Night RAW head-to-head. TNA is really still pretty young and the move to Monday nights was pretty ill-conceived, but I’m glad that they listened to their fans and moved the show back where they wanted it – on Thursday nights on Spike TV!

V
I like this show. In fact, sitting through Lost is made more palatable because I know that after the show is over I get to see the actress who played Juliet as one of the main characters on V. The concept behind this show is interesting – aliens that look and talk like humans have come to earth in these spaceships and they are offering all of these great technological advances in the name of peace. Sounds great, right? Meanwhile, the aliens are really these reptile creatures that have the sole intent of invading the earth and destroy its people. In fact, a fleet of enemy ships are on their way to earth and no one knows about it!

There is a certain overall feeling of hopelessness with sporadic glimmers of hope throughout this show that reminds me a lot of the Battlestar Galactica series. All of the actors on this show put out great performances and it really is a good show to watch if you’re into the science fiction stuff.

Caprica
This is another show that was stopped mid-season by the SyFy Channel for a break. Why do these channels do this to upstart shows? What’s the purpose? Caprica aired its mid-season finale on March 23rd and the word going around is that there won’t be any more new episodes until the fall. The fall?! Really? What’s the point in that?!

Other than the dumb break in the season, this show is actually pretty good. I think that it needed some time to find itself after the first few episodes and it did. The only carryover character (not counting the Cylons) from the Battlestar Galactica series is Admiral William Adama, though Adama is a young boy in Caprica. At one point, Battlestar Galactica was the best show on television, bar none. I think that if Caprica is given the right room to grow into itself, it can easily become one of the top shows on cable television and probably compete with the network stations for audience.

The story thus far is pretty compelling. A genius scientist and a rugged attorney each lose their daughters in a train explosion set off by a religious separatist group claiming that there is only one God and not many Gods as most people believe. As the first half of the season progresses, we find out that not only are one of the daughters actually involved in the separatist group, but that she (being a genius herself) created an avatar of herself and has it stored in an online world that her father created for entertainment purposes. In fact, once her father finds this out he is able to create an avatar of the other girl that died in the bombing and he shares that avatar with her father – the lawyer – who then becomes obsessed with finding his daughter in this online world.

That’s a trivial explanation of what’s going on and I’m obviously leaving out major plot points, but this is a good show and I hope SyFy gives it a chance.

The Biggest Loser
This is one of the best reality shows on television, if not the best reality show, period. What makes this show so great is that not only do you learn the back stories of each of the contestants, but you actually get to watch them transform themselves into a new person. Anyone who is watching this season has to be impressed with Sam and Koli’s transformations. The same for Michael.

Actually, Michael is an interesting case. He’s the biggest contestant in Biggest Loser history starting the show weighing in at 526 pounds. And here he is a full 16 weeks into the show and he’s lost 192 pounds and is weighing in at 334 pounds. Yet, that’s the weight that most people start at on the show! Quite frankly, Michael can still lose another 130 – 150 pounds before his weight loss journey is over. Imagine that for a moment. Here’s this guy on this weight loss show and he’s lost nearly 200 pounds and yet he’s only a little past the halfway point in his transformation.

Amazing.

For this reason alone, Michael is my pick to win the whole thing this season, although I think his stiffest competition may come from Ashley.

House
You want to talk about great shows? House is the best medical drama on television. Hugh Laurie plays the best crazy doctor that anyone could ask for and he really makes the show complete. Whenever I flip over to my DVR and see what I have stored up to watch, I’m always glad when there is an episode or two of House waiting for me. This is one of those shows that you can watch one time and wind up getting hooked. In fact, I even began watching some of the first season episodes online so I can catch up with all of the storylines.

This season has been good and I think I find myself enjoying the individual episodes and the individual patient storylines more than the overarching stories behind all of the main characters. Maybe I like medical dramas, I guess.

Anyway, there’s my report on what I think of this season’s television shows and how they’re progressing. What do you think about these shows?

Fringe
This is the best new show of the season, bar none. The show is from J. J. Abrams (the guy who created Lost) and has a distinct “Lost” feel to it (more on that later). The use of John Noble as Dr. Walter Bishop was a great casting decision. Noble plays the sometimes crazy, but always intelligent Dr. Bishop better than anyone else could. He has that unique range in his acting where he can be completely serious or an absolute nut job. Good casting.

What is less pleasing about the show is the interplay between Dr. Bishop and his son Peter Bishop, played by Joshua Jackson. Peter Bishop is supposed to be this low-level playboy turned into entrepreneur turned into businessman or something. His character is supposed to have an air of arrogance about him and Jackson does a good job of bringing that out in his acting. But the writers have Peter constantly annoyed and aggravated at his father and it gets very old, very quick. In fact, I think it got old around the second or third episode.

Anna Torv is Agent Olivia Dunham, a member of the FBI who is charged with investigating events that may be part of “The Pattern.” Sound cryptic yet? Thank you, Mr. Abrams, for bringing some of your Lost thoughts over to Fringe! But that’s part of the problem with this show. And this is definitely an unfair statement, but knowing that J. J. Abrams is behind this show is scary because Abrams has a history of leaving shows and projects half finished. Case in point – Lost. As soon as he left Lost, it began to go downhill. I hope he sticks with Fringe because if he leaves, then this complex show might be doomed.

For now, though, I recommend checking out Fringe or at least DVR’ing it for future viewing. Oh, and BIG kudos go out to the FOX team for bringing us this show with limited commercial interruptions. As the show cuts to commercial, the viewers are told “Fringe will return in __ seconds.” The blank space is either 60 or 90. Imagine that – a great television show with limited commercial interruptions!

House
If Fringe is the best new show on television, the House has to be the best returning show on television. Since I started watching this show last year I’ve been hooked. It’s awesome! So far this season Dr. House, played by Hugh Laurie, has had to face his step father’s death and almost losing his best friend Dr. Wilson. The writers for this show are doing a great job of pushing along the basic storyline of Dr. House being a complete asshole to his co-workers and his patients, yet maintaining a certain air of super intelligence and coolness while doing so.

The latest episode saw “Thirteen” getting fired and rehired by House (and some explicit, yet enjoyable, scenes of Thirteen hooking up with another lady). The games that House plays with his employees and co-workers has been given a nice kick in the ass this season by the introduction of Lucas Douglas (played by Michael Weston) – a private investigator hired by House to spy on everyone.

Douglas does a good job of matching wits with House in the early episodes of this season. He and House become friends and Douglas becomes the doctor’s “on-call” personal investigator. The interaction between the two is fun to watch because it is written very much like a big brother/little brother relationship.

If you haven’t yet gotten hooked on House, then now would be a good time to start. This show is great!

Even more television reviews coming soon!