Due Diligence, whatever that means

So the other day, quite randomly, I found this:

5 acres only 15 minutes away from town. The land is completely undeveloped which is exciting on the one hand, but ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING at the same time.

Tomorrow we are talking to the realtor and making an offer on it, PROVIDED we have a good way to escape if something gets to scary in escrow!!

There is enough flat-ish land to put a house and a parking area. The rest is pretty steep, which is why its cheap! Ha! ...Poetry.

And because I'm obsessive, I've found a house plan I like.

I can get lost for days at that website. But I really like the lay out of this house. Big common room. Bedrooms and master suite on opposite ends. GIANT garage. I like garages... Oh! And see it has a spiffy spiral staircase? Anything with a spiral staircase is automatically cool. 

Who knows if we'll actually be able to afford to build this particular house, but if we do get to build, it will be along similar lines.

So, again, because I obsess on projects and I have no restraint... I did this:

Its an unfinished 3D mock up of the building, on the actual property, complete with topography, pulled from Google Maps. (the 3D model is a mirror image of the above plans, if you're wondering) No, I did NOT use crazy expensive programs to do this. You can get this 3D modeling program for free from these guys. It's called SketchUp and I love it!! Whenever I have a really complicated design that I need to communicate, SketchUp always saves the day! Ok. Enough with the product placement. ;)

Back to the property. I figure I'll just post as we go along this process. There's so much to learn!! Our first step was to befriend a General Contractor. We found two at church and got to enjoy watching them argue about how to put in a septic tank properly. The strangest things can be entertaining...

We went and walked the property with one of them, that's when I took the video. He was very encouraging and was interested in the dirt himself if we don't get it! That's a good sign, right? But they kept saying that we needed to do our 'due diligence' during escrow so we don't get screwed. Great. What does that mean!?

According to Google - 

due dil·i·gence

Noun Reasonable steps taken by a person in order to satisfy a legal requirement, esp. in buying or selling something.

Ooook.... Not at all helpful. So we asked them for a list. Its long. If you're curious, message me and I'll email it to you. It should apply to any property. It was just way too long, technical and boring to post!

But I'm grateful for the list, because the last thing we want is to get stuck with an unusable piece of land because we didn't do our homework!! See kids? Stay in school! It teaches important things, like following through and research! And grammar, which somehow escaped me... Spelling too. Oh well. 

Now for the spiritual part. There is that verse in Proverbs 31 about "she inspects a field and buys it," and that's really what I'm doing here. The hubby is at his job, so I get to do the leg work. It is quite empowering because so often I look to him to just make the big decisions as the Biblically mandated leader of the family. Yet here I am, driving this thing! Don't get me wrong, he's on board for this. I wouldn't be moving forward if he wasn't ok with it. But it's my baby. 

Hopefully, this baby doesn't destroy us financially... Risks are fun!! (we need a sarcasm emoticon) 

The plan is to go sllllooooooooowwwllly. Carefully. And hopefully wisely. Once we're in escrow I shall do my due diligence and may God's will be done. Amen. 

And last, for your viewing enjoyment: 

A staged picture of models and actors pretending to be architects and business people. Do you really think they're in a construction zone requiring hard hats? Why don't they all have hard hats? Maybe the two girls have metal plates in their heads so they don't need hard hats. It could happen. Twice. I wonder what shoes they're wearing... Betcha $5 none of 'em are wearing steel-toed boots. 

Have a great day. 

Learning Linux and Hacking!

I know this isn't very Biblical sounding.... but I'm learning how to hack. I actually do have a reason for this that's not totally shady!! I work for a company that does Penetration Testing, where they go and test the security of a computer or business by staging an attack. So yeah, we get to pretend to be bad guys and do the fun bad guy stuff, but not get in trouble. AND get paid. Well... that's the goal anyway.

Right now I'm attempting to make myself more valuable to the company and that means learning. Learning and making money ties in with the whole P31 thing, and I think its fun. Thus this post.

If you don't like tech stuff, stop reading right now and wait for another crafty blog!! Don't worry, I totally get it! I won't be offended. Much.

So. Linux.

Here's the secret to Linux............. Google it. 

That's all. That's the massive secret to using Linux. If you willing to learn and do your homework, you can have the most stable and virus free operating system on the planet for free. Yes, FREE. 

Some basics for the baby-techies out there: Linux is an operating system, just like Windows 7/8 or Mac OS (insert some fierce big cat here). The big difference is that it takes more work to set up and you don't have to pay for it. The reason you don't have to pay for it is that nerds made it so they could tweak it. Cuz that's what nerds do. They wanted to be able to play with an OS (operating system) and to be able to let their friends play with it too.

"But nothing's free," you may say. "Where's the catch?"

There is one, but it probably won't effect you much. Because Linux is so stable (it won't crash), businesses like it. And Linux people know that. So they do charge for business who want to buy multiple versions of their spiffy business server versions. Yeah, didn't think that would be a problem.

Oh, did I mention there are multiple versions of Linux? There are. Don't worry about it. 

Enough twaddle. So you want to start? OK!

1. Get a computer you don't care about. No, really. Don't install Linux on your primary computer if you have no idea how to use it. You're just going to get pissed off. The learning curve is a bit steep.
2. Get another computer (this can be your main computer) and have Google standing by. 
3. Look up http://www.ubuntu.com/ This is a pretty user friendly version of Linux. Wander around a bit. Read. Read some more. 
4. This is the easiest way to install it. It's a windows installer, but if you want to be extra nerdy, you can install it from a USB stick. Look around for instructions on how to install it from USB. Or just click here.
5. If you have questions, GOOGLE IT! Seriously. Read the error message and just type that in the search bar. If you ask me, that's all I'd be doing. I'm not a Linux guru, but I know how to use Google and it's almost the same thing. Ok, not really. 
6. Have fun! There's lots of fun things Linux can do that the regular OSs can't. Look around on YouTube for tutorials on how to use it. Install stuff. Check out spiffy toys like CompizFusion to make it look cool and light your desktop on fire. There's even tutorials on how to make Linux work/look like Windows or Mac
7. Don't be afraid to break it. It was free, right? Just install it again and start over!! I've done that multiple times, believe me. You learn more when you fail than when you succeed.

Ok, so I totally wasn't expecting this to be a Linux install tutorial. But whatever. I have had Linux running on my laptop for one or two years now. It works fine. No problems. Installing stuff is annoying sometimes, but that's why Al Gore invented the interwebs.

I just finished installing a different version of Linux called Kali Linux. It is a version designed specifically for hacking and I have no idea what that means yet. But its up and running and I'm about to find out. I had trouble installing it, so I wouldn't start with Kali. Ubuntu is great and if I can't handle Kali, I'm going back to Ubuntu.

Check out this video on Linux (and his other videos too!) if you want to know more about Linux in general. He has a whole bunch of computer videos and quite a few on Linux. Good stuff. Beware - tis long.

If you have a question, or an idea for a blog post, or something you have no idea how to make but want to see if I can do it... Comment below! Have a wonderful night!