Reading, reading, reading

I must have the most boring pleasure-reading menu on the planet. The last several books I've read have all been non-fiction:

The Omnivore's Dilemma
Boys Adrift
The Siege of Mecca
Class 11
(Plus a bone-dry 800+ page textbook)


And you know what? I've read all of those in the last 3 months. And in addition to those, I read The Fist of God, which is fiction set during the first Gulf War. And that's all in addition to what I have to read at work and the newspaper that I read every morning.

I've never been an avid reader. I can't even remember reading an entire book in college--mostly I got by just taking notes during lectures and divvying up assignments in study groups.

The only reason why I'm reading so much now is that I have a total of 3 hours on the Metro each day. But why am I drawn to non-fiction? I wonder if I'll keep reading when I move out to Herndon.

Latest Issue of the Washingtonian

The newest issue is now out on shelves. My story is on the last page. I took a few copies of the magazine to church and everyone was very excited to see the article. And Matthew the photographer was nice enough to put up some extra pictures for us.

http://www.matthewworden.com/Nate/

...Unfortunately, it looks like that link is no longer valid. I hope you all got the pictures you wanted.

Cherry Blossoms

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom in DC. Hil and I have extremely busy, so it's been difficult to actually get out and see them. A few Sundays ago, as soon as we had a free minute, we rushed out to the tidal basin and snapped a few photos right before the light disappeared entirely. I had to digitally lighten these photos a little. I hope it doesn't show.

In other news, I finally picked up American Born Chinese from the library. It's fantastic. Go and read it. It'll probably take you just an hour or two to finish it, depending on how much time you want to spend just admiring its simplicity.

In other other news, we've had plenty of events going on in the area. We've been to the Kite Festival, Anime Marathon, and Korean Film Festival all within just the last month. I made Hil a kite for her birthday. I'll put up pictures of that soon.

If the ad says bring a screwgun...

On Saturday Hil and I went to look at a house I was interested in. It looked good in the pictures, except for the plywood over the doors and windows. Partially restored, I thought, under construction maybe. Wow, was that naive or what?

32 and 34 Q Street NW are both for sale. Both are giant houses, with 8 and 10 bedrooms respectively. Three stories, plus a basement. Zillow says they should be worth more than $700k each. They're listed on the internet for $300k each. The advertisement said that the previous buyer had backed out and the houses are back on the market. If you want to see them, just let yourself in. Bring a flashlight and a screwgun.

When we arrived, the door's plywood cover had already been removed, but the door was still locked. A neighbor said that two days ago someone else had come to inspect the house. I guess he locked the door when he left. Hil and I searched around for some other way in until I realized, hey, I could totally jimmy that lock.

With a four-inch length of rigid steel wire, I worked the lock open and let us into 32 Q Street.

I think Hilary might have been more scared than I was. And if I really thought through what I was doing, I should have been much more scared. The floor was covered in garbage from all the squatters. Dirty clothes and blankets, cigarette butts, plastic bags, all piled in the corners. The plumbing had long ago been shut off, but that didn't stop the squatters from using the toilets. Discarded condoms thrown randomly throughout the rooms and stairwells hinted at the house's other occupants.

We wandered around carefully, quietly, and we heard a noise coming from the kitchen. I had seen a back door in the kitchen. I motioned for Hil to go back to the front door, ready to run out in case we didn't want to meet the source of the noise. I shouted into the dark house, "Hey! Who's there?" And the rustling stopped.

I walked to the kitchen, and saw that the plywood cover had been partially pried open. The neighborhood indigents still had an entrance. I looked into the back yard and saw a woman sitting on the porch, hands trembling, trying to light a sharply bent cigarette. I asked her what she was doing there, if she knew how long the house had been in this condition. She wouldn't look up, wouldn't answer. She just shook her head and fumbled with her lighter.

We continued exploring the old house, which we concluded must have become a hostel at some point, with broken exit signs and fire alarms, floodlights dangling from the walls. And on the second and third floors, we found doors where there shouldn't have been doors.

The bottom of the door was at least two feet off the floor, crudely punched into the wall leading into nextdoor 34 Q. 34 Q had been completely boarded up, no available entrance anywhere I could see. But through the door I heard at least two people whispering. The door was locked sturdily. Boot marks showed that other people had gone to great effort to open this door before. I decided to not press our luck, and instead of kicking in the door, we left the house.

On the way back to the car, I asked a neighbor what they knew of the houses. 30, 32, and 34 Q had all at one point been boarding houses. All were now home to squatters, prostitutes, and drug dealers. They had been officially unoccupied for at least the last two years. And I doubt anyone will buy the houses until they're actually unoccupied.

I'm Househunting, Hil's in NYC

This entry is partly for Hilary's benefit so she can see the houses that I've been looking at today.

Today I found the house of our dreams. I'll give you the address but don't you dare buy it out from under us. And I'm sure that nobody reads this blog anyway, so I'm not in any danger of spreading a secret.

The house is at 829 10th St NE in Washington. Two floors, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, vaulted ceilings, exposed brick, hardwood floors, new kitchen, basement rental unit. And it's a beautiful house. It last sold in August 2006 for $629,000. Not taking into account the most recent sale price, Zillow estimated the house at $545,000. This house is now up for short sale at $250,000.

Yes, a house that should be over half a million dollars is listed at half that. It might be just a ploy to get a bidding war started, but I'm ready to make an offer.

I called around on some of the surrounding houses with For Sale signs. 817 was $550,000, under contract now, but the realtor couldn't say what it had sold for. There's a house around the corner at 1004 I St up for sale too, but I couldn't find out its price.

I took a look at some other houses, but none of them really excited me the way this one did. When the realtors dropped me off back at my car in front of the first house, I saw another group go in to look around. And while they were inside, another group showed up. I'm worried that this is going to turn into a bidding war. I'll go get my pre-approval and make an offer, probably with a, what do you call it, a thing in the contract that says I'll buy it for this much but if there's another offer I'm willing to go as high as this much.

Anyway, here are the pictures of my dream house. I hope we can get it.

All the youth should be able to break arms

It started when I subbed for Hilary's Sunday school class. To get the kids' attention, we had told them about my martial arts background (and maybe exaggerated it a bit). And last night, I taught the ward's youth some jujitsu.

A little about the ward: The members are (please excuse these sweeping generalizations) essentially white people who moved to DC to work for the government or to attend grad school, and black people who have lived and worked in DC for generations. The youth are all inner-city black kids, except for one permanent white girl and a couple of seasonal Senate pages from Utah and Idaho.

Everyone showed up late, with all of the youth leaders driving around town picking up the kids. It was a little bit of a chore getting everyone involved and interested. And Mike, the 6'5" 225 lb. husband of Young Women leader Taryn, helped out a lot with keeping kids involved and being my practice dummy.

Through the evening, I taught everyone an escape from the mount, an armbar from guard or mount, and the figure-four armbar from side-mount. Eventually all of the young men were very actively participating, crowding around for a better view of the action, and excitedly using the moves against their partners. Only one of the young women got into the brawl, but the others had a good time overreacting to the carnage.

Later, the youth leaders told me that they had never seen the youth so interested in any activity. I think I'd like to do it again. Pictures will be posted soon.

It's a girl!

It's a girl--you can see for yourself... right? Hil and I went to the radiologist today. Here are the results. Our baby girl is healthy and 20 weeks old. The radiologist moved back her expected birthday to 24 May. Hil and I are still discussing names.

DC

Hil and I moved to DC about two weeks ago. We have a cute little English basement apartment near East Market. Hil started work at GWU teaching Arabic. I'm temping through a company called Office Team while I wait for my security clearance. The recruiter just emailed the applicants to tell us all that if we move to DC before being cleared, the government won't pay for the move. It would've been nice for him to mention that earlier.

I promise pictures are coming up soon.