re: Battlefield Talk
 

I need to be kept away from BFBC2 in the middle of the afternoon. I turn on my headset just so I can yell at people in my squad for being dumb shits.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

@ Spatula,

Can't emphasize this enough, especially as you start a family: BUY A HOUSE...unless you're certain that seminary is going to force a move in the next 3-4 years.

@ Flip,

I hear you bro. I was in no state of mind to play last night...getting bad news at work about my next assignment and am preoccupied and angry.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

We know we should buy a house. It's a buyer's market and there's plenty of opportunity. Plus, at the rent rates we're paying, it would be easy to find something with a comparable or lower monthly mortgage rate.

Thing is, UMC pastors are itinerant, meaning I could be appointed to serve anywhere in the state. Tricky to buy a house in the Twin Cities and then get moved to Rochester or Duluth in 3-5 years. With so many houses on the market already, ours would become one of the throngs waiting to get snatched up and I've seen young adult clergy have a lot of difficulty with this. They buy during their first appointment, then they get moved somewhere else in 3-5 years, and they either have to try and sell or they end up commuting over an hour to work from one end of the metro area to the next. Ministers do get a housing allowance as part of their income package and that will be helpful, but buying just isn't in the cards for a while, perhaps even in this decade. Next time I'm with a group of young adult pastors, I plan on asking them about their experiences and advice on that one. It's clear that pastors over 40 have experiences based on a completely different economy and housing market.

That's a big reason why we're trying to figure out what to do right now. We're in an odd one-year transition point between seminary finishing and my first probationary appointment, if "the plan" goes according to "the plan."

I wish I could ask the manager at our current place if we can off-set the rising cost of rent by my giving him lessons in how to listen (or at least appear to listen) to residents, how to offer care in delivering hardball news, and how not to act like a jerk with numbers, er, people. I'd ask, but he'll probably tell me about boat parking for another fifteen minutes.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

Not dissimilar from the military in that way. I rent two houses right now and am considering renting out the one I live in now when we move this summer. You pay a property manager and you're good. Just make sure you buy a place that you can rent at or near your mortgage payment.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

These are houses you own, rent out to tenants, and pay a property manager / caretaker to do something for the houses? School me on this.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

I do this as well.

We owned (well had a mortgage on) a house and then moved into this new one. We couldn't sell the old one due to the market bottoming out. So we have a property manager who takes care of it for us.

Basically his beginning payment was two months of rent - to be paid when he found a tenant. He took care of all the background checks and everything. Then we pay him 10% each month of the rental fee. For this service, he handles all tenant calls, issues, collections, repairs. Now we had to have an account with repair funds set aside already but it has been nice to have the problems out of our hands.

For instance the couple who rented the house are elderly so they wanted a hand rail installed on the stairs. This guy manages hundreds of properties so he has a group of people who fix things. Using his guys only cost us 30$ to have it put in... parts and labor. Well worth it for me who has no time or know-how to do something like that.

Overall the tenant is basically paying our mortgage on the old house. I think we are currently losing 3$ each month - including the little things we have paid to fix. I'm totally cool with that.

Also, he pays our mortgage and everything for us so we basically do nothing with the old house.

As a side note, doesn't the UMC put you in a parish house? Typically they have a house for the pastor to use don't they? So if you bought a house and were moved in a few years you could rent the old one out while living in the parish house and still just have one payment. Around here I think if the pastor owns a house then the parish rents out the parish property and then bumps up the pay of the pastor to make up for his house payment (iirc). This is being based on recollections of my dad talking about the finances when he used to do the checkbook and such for one of the local Methodist churches.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

What he said, except I get a better rate and a slightly different contract structure. I pay a "finders fee" every time I have to get a new tenant in either house, repairs and such are taken out of the monthly rent, and I pay a flat rate of $80/month for each house, which also comes out of the rent. It's a good deal on the first house, which rents for about $1100, and it's a great deal on the second, which rents for about $1600. It's a friend of a friend kind of deal, and she also makes money as my realtor when I buy houses, so she does just fine.

My plan is actually to retire when I retire from the military and live off of my military retirement and 3-4 rent houses. I'll be in my early 40s.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

Ability to buy aside-- my first question is what expenses would be involved in moving? Truck rental/movers? Brokers fee?

I know that, at least in NY, the cost of moving + a brokers fee + the hassle of moving, the price differential would have to be pretty sizable to make a move worth it if I was likely going to have to move again in a year.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

True...if you're only a year out, it's probably best just to bite the bullet.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

In Battlefield news:

• It strikes me that I'm having no trouble whatsoever finding games in BFBC2 these days.
• Hit .9 on my KDR despite continuing my usual aggressive play
• Engineer kit is getting a lot of mileage lately
• Engi kit...XM8 Compact, mines or RPG 7, explosives upgrade, explosives mark II...basically, I blow shit up, and those little SMGs are no joke.
• Also having a little bit of fun with the Assault kit and the AUG...still prefer medic, but 40MM grenades are amazing for taking out hiding spots, and the Assault kit is great for those times when you know you're going to need extra ammo.
• I'm finally getting around to gold starring a bunch of the LMGs...extra points are tasty
• Got my 50th Combat Excellence pin...need a banner that tracks those
• Edit to add: I find myself shooting dudes rather than knifing them as I'm "starring" all these weapons...very odd.

Had some good matches today rolling with a few dudes I've met. Highlights were:

• A run into the US spawn in Port Valdez, stealing their tank, parking it right where their chopper spawns and getting 15 kills in a row...one short of a double combat excellence.
• Another game on Port Valdez. I like to mine the steep road that comes down from the US spawn, and I was hiding on the side of the road, watching an Abrams meticulously clear the road of my mines. When he seemed satisfied that the coast was clear and started rolling, I tossed two more out from the bush I was hiding in, waited a second or two and ran across the street to bait him. Sure enough, he moves after me, and BOOM!
• A game on Arica Harbor (a map I like less and less) where I racked up 10K pure points (no gold stars etc.) in an incredibly hectic fiesta of carnage
• This dude says, "You're fun to spawn on!" :whofart: "No, no, I mean you're always where the action is!" :whofart:
• Done this twice now: At the opening of Laguna Alta, where the teams always arrive at Alpha on quads in the first 15 seconds...I quad over to alpha flag, drop a couple of mines in the road and stand in the road, baiting the other team's quad to try to run over me. The joy of watching a quad that is trying to road kill you get launched over your head is too brilliant to describe.

Lowlight was:

On Nelson Bay, this Assault dude blows a hole in the edge of the roof of the Alpha house and jumps out and on top of the house. He wedges himself between the chimney and the crest of the roof and makes the map a living hell for 10-15 minutes. He literally managed to stay in that spot for the entire map. :grumble:

re: Battlefield Talk
 

I'm with these guys...the pain of moving has to be assigned a price and then you have to figure out whether paying the extra rent is worth it or not. I wouldn't even factor in how the guy treated you, because, fuck him, he really doesn't matter. In the grand scheme of things, all that really matters is that you do right by yourself and your family.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

As long as you don't have to move a giant fucking desk.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

see that's the good thing about Nic...he is always willing to help.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

rotfl

re: Battlefield Talk
 

This x 100.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

Speaking of BATTLEFIELD, this dude was douching us up pretty bad the other day in a way I want to replicate. He was C4ing all of the usual hiding spots at objectives, waiting for the other team to start moving the flag, and BOOM!

I was fuming but also secretly appreciative of his assholery.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

I can't do this...I have tried and failed because my Battlefield Onset ADHD kicks in and I get antsy and do soemthign to get shot.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

Yeah, me too, but I think I'd like to get the 100 C4 kills at some point.

And there are only a few maps/objectives that it's really effective on, but it's good on 3 of the 4 on Panama Canal, so I think that's where it would be best put to use...maybe Laguna Alta.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

I think I earned my final 10 of 100 C4 kills by playing Panama Canal on hardcore mode, sneaking into the US deployment, and lacing their tanks with C4 and blowin' 'em up real good, all the while my location hidden with no killcam. A dirty way to play but also a little fun, since that's definitely not my standard way of playing.

As for the moving stuff, we appreciate all of the input, thanks. We're going to make our final decision tonight. We'll see what happens; there are pros and cons to both options.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

I tried the C4 thing for a bit last night, thinking I could do that and also snipe a bit. It turns out both sniping and waiting for dudes to walk into my C4 sucks. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm never going to do the sniper rifle thing, and I'll likely never get the C4 thing done either. It's back to full time medic/engineer (depending on the map) for me, but luckily I have tons of guns to star.

Congrats to spatula for hitting 100 ace pins!

re: Battlefield Talk
 

The key for me is playing Assault with the C4 via using a shotgun. Rambo kill the tanks. You'll earn your kills. It's all about sneaking around the tank. Don't be afraid to take the tank and passengers out along with a suicide. You would be surprised how many don't pay attention to the proximity scan.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

Yeah, that's what I normally do, but I was thinking that if was going to camp, I might as well play recon and try to level up my last class, see if it would be worthwhile to get the sniper rifle medal and also toss some motion sensors around. It turns out that none of those things are fun.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

I hate sniper rifles, but I really enjoy running a recon with a G3 rifle, C4, and the motion sensors. It sucks when playing with randoms and blueberries, but when i run with you guys, I love tossing wiffle balls into a house seeing the "spot assists" pop up over and over again.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

We've turned in our notice on the lease and will move by May 31.

It was a tough decision but it's time to do some right-sizing of our priorities, our finances, and our material goods. It's going to have some opportunity cost of time and effort and we'll likely have to leave our day care which we really, really like, so it will be tough but we're trying to stay optimistic and excited for change. Regardless of the hidden fees of moving - whether that's renting trucks and equipment, a more expensive day care, etc. - we'll still end up saving a few thousand dollars and that's money toward a down payment on a house later or investment for our daughter or just plain living within our means better.

Despite the new manager's attitude (this morning he did offer to eliminate the $25 storage space fee), he is letting us extend the lease by one month for the bumped up price but not the short-term lease fee as well as keep our extra parking space and the storage area without an extra charge. I explained to him that moving mid-semester is unfathomable and wondered what could be done. He seemed receptive to that and I thought it was a sign that maybe he is human after all... although he did pull out his budget reports and show me a few pages of numbers to justify why rents need to be increased across the board. Thanks for all the extra information, bro.

So we have two options when looking for a new place. The first is get a two-bedroom, downsize, and put half of our stuff in a storage facility until I get appointed in 2013 - this option has to make sure the combined cost of rent + storage facility still sees us saving plenty of money. The second option is to get a three-bedroom so we don't need a storage facility yet is less expensive than where we're renting now. Both options could work for different reasons. Either way, downsizing our payment and how much stuff we have is important to us; the church rummage sale is going to have even more of our stuff in it than usual.

I saw a place yesterday that looks really great (option #2 and much cheaper) and the whole family will check it out on Friday. There's a UMC day care a few blocks away at a UMC church I know really well but they're full so we have an appointment with the ELCA day care a few blocks away. High hopes we'll have a place locked in on Friday but if not, we've got some time to figure it out.

So if I'm not online a lot in the coming months, chalk it up to moving, homework, and life in general.

Oh. And remind me to tell you about our weekend from hell in which my wife broke her toe and a tooth, we had to leave a hotel in the middle of the night because of a rave and pot smoke wafting into our room where our baby is, and seeing an apartment that left us genuinely creeped out. Like, terrified creeped out.

Carry on, carry on.

re: Battlefield Talk
 

I think those would be a lot cooler if they put the red arrow over dudes rather than just showing them on the map. I actually find the beeping kind of unnerving.

Hit level 47 and 300 ace pins tonight!

Had another epic game on Arica Harbor...went something like 45 and 25 and grabbed the ace by about 2000 points. Really liking the T88...have to see how I feel about the SAW when I go back to it.

Also had a good game with OG on Nelson Bay where we were way up and then the other team got 9 douchebag players to our 6 and we were getting overrun pretty bad. But we only needed about 40 kills before we bled out 160ish, so we rolled out as medics and stuck together and just started lighting motherfuckers up for the handy win. I had one run in this crazy confrontation at Alpha where I got 6 kills in a row and every one was more cathartic than the last. I was doing my best impression of Hudson from Aliens.

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