Negotiating Tactics

Kristin and I have been considering buying a home in Santa Monica. We've been looking at condos for the last few months and have recently gotten serious. So we made an offer on one condo. It's a short sale, and that always take a lot of time to get a response. Well, last night, we finally heard back, and the banks decided to counter.

Their counter was to ask us to submit our best and final offer. I guess the issue is that there are four other bidders. So even though we offered the full asking price, we're now involved in an auction. Unfortunately, I know only one negotiating tactic, and it doesn't work well in an auction environment. That tactic is "the walk away": you get the other side emotionally involved, but you remain unmotivated. Then, when everyone seems close to a deal, you threaten to "just walk away," just as Kelly Clarkson mentioned in her song. Unfortunately, we're competing against four other bidders, so that's not likely to work here. It looks like we'll raise our offer price by $6k, and that's it. Either we win, or we lose.

Negotiating is not fun when you're flying blind as we are, but that's all we can do right now.

Stuff That's Going On

As you can tell, blogging has been slow as of late. I've run out of ideas and motivation. I still have plenty of time to be blogging, I've just had nothing to say. This weekend, someone mentioned to me that I've probably come to realize that my life is just as boring as everyone else's. No, that's exactly the wrong conclusion, since I've always known that my life is boring. It's just that I managed to spruce things up in the blog through various rants that have no real meaning or importance. Anyway, I'd had thoughts about letting the blog die out, but I thought I'd give it another go and try to keep this thing alive for a while longer, and then reassess at some point in the future.

So let's discuss some issues in the Pagano household:

Softball: Since I haven't written lately, I will update you and let you know that last week, we lost another 1-run game, to fall to 3-5 on the season. Last night, therefore, was our ninth game, and it was our finest performance. We won 20-5, invoking the "slaughter" rule. I myself played well (and it's so amazing how you can actually hit the ball when you keep your eyes on it), although all that matters is that the team got a "W." We're now 4-5 with an outside shot at the playoffs. And if we make it in, we're a force to be reckoned with! Whether we make the playoffs or not, the summer season starts soon. And since our team is starting to bond and really come together, we're probably going to dominate then. To commemorate this, the team will be renamed from the Pasadena Steamers to some new name, something that's dirty and can't be mentioned here.

Formula 1: This is the best sport ever. I will not even bother to debate this. My current ranking of sports goes something like this: 1. Formula 1; 2(T) College Football; 2(T) NFL Football; 4. MMA fighting; and that's it. Baseball is too boring, except for the post-season. Basketball is poorly officiated (maybe even rigged), so there's no point in watching such a sport where the officials can't make up their minds about what's a foul or not a foul, and what's travelling. Anyway, this has led Kristin to mock me as the worst sports fan ever. I disagree, and tell her that she should just go watch Gossip Girl or something while I have my alone time watching "cars going around in circles." In the end, it's all very therapeutic for me.

Running: I'm in training for a half-marathon, and I'm up to 10-mile runs. My lovely wife refuses to join me. Again, she thinks my activity is lame and boring.

Cinco de Mayo: We were supposed to go to a Cinco de Mayo party on Uno de Mayo, but a certain cousin of Kristin let us down. You know who you are. You better make it up by bringing your A-game next time.

TV: What the heck is going on in "Lost"? And "Jon & Kate Plus 8" ended a few weeks ago. Although check this out. And now we're watching "The Biggest Loser." Of course, I think their measuring system is bogus. They take percentage of total weight lost to determine who's doing the best. They should be taking percentage of excess weight lost. The results are skewed (favoring the ones who start most out of shape), and I'm considering writing a strongly-worded letter to the producers.

Babies: None.

Kristin: Still rocking out on the Guitar Hero.

That's it for now. I'll try to keep writing. Thanks for reading.

VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tonight was a great night of softball. We won! It was quite exciting. But I'll get to the details of it in a bit. I would have been blogging earlier, to provide you the highest quality blog-ertainment. But Kristin stole the computer from me, and messed around on Facebook for 10 minutes or so while I sat there and waited. So not only will she not put forth the effort to blog, but now she is actively blocking my blogging.

Anyway, tonight's game started like just about all the others. We fell behind early, and we found ourselves in a big hole. And as for me, in the first four innings, I was 0 for 3 with a strikeout, with two of my at-bats ending the inning. So clearly, things were going bad, and particularly so for me.

But then came the fifth inning. The Pasadena Steamers (that's us) staged a monumental rally, pushing 17 runs across the plate, going from 11 down to 6 up. And the most sensational part was my VERY ordinary hit in the middle of the inning. With one out, I had two strikes on me and was just about ready to strike out or ground out for a fourth time in the game, but a teammate yelled out some inspirational words of wisdom (very much like Yogi Berra or some other baseball philosopher), and it put me in the right frame of mind to knock an easy single into right-center field. I don't know if it's possible to even overstate this, but it was miraculous!

In the top of the sixth inning, the other team only scored three runs, so we ended up with a solid win. And as for me, I was thinking about retiring in shame (since my batting performance had been so bad), but now I can almost retire in glory (since I've now doubled my hit total for the season).

That's it for now. But with a win next week, we can keep our playoff hopes alive. I'll let you know how it goes, unless I have four strike-outs next week, which is very possible, in which case I won't.

Easter

Today, we went over to my aunt's house for Easter. Because it was going to be warm, I wore shorts. The particular pair of shorts I chose were a bit loose around my waist but not too loose that I would need a belt. But then I figured that I'd be dealing with certain hooligans while at my aunt's house - my cousins Domenic and Patrick - and that one of them might try to pants me at some point. So I decided that I'd wear a belt. Sure enough, Patrick tried to pants me (only 10 minutes or so after our arrival) . Disaster avoided due to a little forethought.

Then, at little later, I checked Facebook on my phone. Apparently, I had received a friend request from Christopher Pagano, in Indiana. I don't know this Christopher Pagano. I have nothing in common with him. So as much as it intrigues me that he wants to be my Facebook friend, and as much as I need more friends so as to catch up to Kristin (who always has 10 to 20 more friends than I do), I'm going to have to ignore his friend request.

Finally, a Festivus-style "Feats of Strength" has been in the works with my cousin Steven for quite some time. Over Christmas, he was supposed to do 100 push-ups in 5 minutes, for $100. He claimed at the time that he couldn't do it because he hadn't had time to train because he had been sick leading up to that day. Well, today, he has ready to go. Since he had had extra time to train, I offered him only $20 if he could do 100 in 5 minutes. We went out to the front yard, and he made a go of it. After 25 seconds, he had completed the first 20. By the end of the first minute, he was done with 40. I was starting to get worried that I might lose. Then it took him a minute to do the next 20. At this point, he had 3 minutes to do 40 more. Well, the next 10 push-ups took him quite a bit of time, and the next 10 even more, and the next 10 even more. With 30 seconds left, he had 10 to go. He made a valiant try, but most of his final push-ups didn't meet the technical requirements of a push-up, such that most were excluded. And as time ran out, our official counter (cousin Patrick) had him at 93. So close, yet so far! Sorry Steven, good luck next time. However, the major question is what should be the next event for the Feats of Strength. I'm thinking of making him run a 10k in under 50 minutes next Christmas. I think that would be fair. Any other suggestions?

A Vicious Pine Cone?

We spent a lovely day at the bar, watching Michigan St. beat UConn, helping Kristin clinch a win in her office's NCAA college basketball tournament bracket. We then watched a little of the Carolina-Villanova game. But when we realized it was going to be a blowout, we took off. We walked back to my car, got in, and closed the doors. And then the back window shattered.

The result was this:

So the moral of the story is that bird crap isn't the only thing you have to worry about when you park under trees. Also, if anyone is to be blamed, it's probably Obama.

One Cookie

Yesterday, I made chocolate chip cookies after dinner (M&M cookies, to be precise). It was really one of my lesser performances in making cookies. The result was the following cookie (singular):


Well, I realize that this wasn't one of my better performances. However, from it sprang an opportunity. Normally, when there are cookies, Kristin tries to limit me to one cookie per day (knowing that I'll eat four anyway). But with this cookie, I can eat the whole thing and still technically fall within her regulations.

Victory acheived through an unexpected loophole!

Follow-Up Items

Connect 4: Having played upwards of 1000 games starting in January, I finally quit a few weeks ago. It was quite a drain on my time.

Softball: Nothing good to report. We are 1-1 in our last two games, but my hitting prowess is regressing. It's quite embarrassing. I'd consider quitting for the sake of the team, but I don't want to be a quitter.

Wrist Fat: I am now convinced that this is more real than ever. I've really picked up the pace and the distance in my running, and I can feel that I've lost a bunch of weight. I've even gone down one belt size. But when I went to weigh myself yesterday, I had lost only two pounds since early January. So it's pretty evident at this point that all the weight from my waist is going straight to my wrist. Who would have thought?

Additional Items:
The Formula 1 racing season is on! Feel free to come over at 2am this weekend to watch GP of Malaysia.