Posted: 1/19/2012 6:44:10 AM EDT
| The wife and I left our house Monday morning, renters moved in that afternoon and we made it down to the Austin suburbs Tuesday night. It felt great to leave and next time I'm back I'll be as a visitor. |
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I wanted to live in Cedar Park closer to where my friend and I are running our business, but for another 15 mile drive I got double the house, on an acre lot, 100 yards from Blacones NWR and a view of the hills from our master bedroom window all at half the price. Granted we're right in the hills and the middle of nowhere, but it's an incredible view.
If a wildfire breaks out in the area it won't be too good, but I'm already fabricating an area sprinkler system and will order some foam to layer the house and doing some landscaping work next week. Leander is pretty big but only has 30,000 residents, it's kind of like saying that you're living in Chicago but really living in Oswego for distance. Public services are a lot like southern IL with FD's combining vollly and career, Sheriff is 10-20 miles away, no gas only propane or all electric appliances, water and electric are all co-op or well. I'll try to post some pics this coming weekend. |
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Mark's holy ground is about 8 miles from the house and yes I do have an extra bedroom for those specific purposes. Having the extra bedroom to encourage the repressed citizens to visit and see how different things can be.
There are so many differences here- Roads are fantastic Only ONE toll road, you can bypass it with the parallel roads easily and very little speed difference Speed limits though towns are regularly 45+ Roads don't have street lights, but the reflectors and striping are far better than any lighting Schools are HUGE (Take a large HS and that is a regular middle school) Food is fantastic, inexpensive groceries There really aren't too many McD's, actually a rare sight People are polite, I can't even begin to describe this! Expect random conversations while waiting in line and you don't have to worry about someone wanting something from it. No asshole drivers, no road rage no international signs of friendship Too many other things to list Housing is so cheap, well built, and great value Taxes are so little Gas is $3.14-$3.24 depending on the station today The shoppers of wally world are not like you would see on peopleofwalmart.com Some drawbacks: Cedar Fever- Essentially a 6 month long suffering of all things sinus if you have allergies A "short drive" means 3 hours Things are spread out, while you have all the typical things like in IL, you're expecting to drive 10-20 min to get things if you're out of major towns Drought is going to be bad this year with a worse fire season than last Water is expensive, but not insane Insects and reptiles are more prevalent (double to triple the size of your typical garden snake), Tarantulas are not in aquariums, but can come out of your flower bed An inch of snow will completely end society and closes everything 
A lot of little things that you really don't notice until you need it like when you get an eye exam, you can't get the glasses from the doc, but a separate business. Same for other medical, vehicle registration and various things. These little things are not annoying, but actually make sense and circumvent a lot of the loopholes that are exploited up north. In certain terms, they thought it out and didn't listen to special interest but looked out for the citizens and the state. |
My grandfather died last summer. Between investing my inheritance and another 23 years on the job (to hit 80%) I hope to buy a piece of nothing some day in UP/MI, Montana or Ontario Canada (I'll miss my FAL) and GTFO, or buy enough land here that no one comes near me. 
Congrats on getting out! |
The one Leander house is out. Upon further inspection my spideysense figured that the morons took a single wide trailer, removed the axles, laid it on a slab, blew out the first floor and added a second floor
There was Romex spliced with wire nuts but no box, Romex spliced with extension cords in the attic, 5" of insulation which is about 20" too little for down here and some penetrations to the outside that would have let in all the spiders, scorpions, mice and cockroaches big enough to have conversations with. I'm checking out another new home in Leander and newer one in Cedar Park tomorrow. I don't want to buy as I still own the house up in Wood Dale and I want to build new on plenty of property down here in hill country where I can shoot on my own property. |
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Quoted:
There was Romex spliced with wire nuts but no box, Romex spliced with extension cords in the attic <snip> Hell - first time I encountered NM (romex) into a fixture with no box was in MO at HH6's Gma's house.  
Best wishes for happiness in Tejas. Enjoy your freedom. We'll keep up the fight as best we can, and keep praying for the New Madrid to throw C(r)ook County into the middle of Lake Michigan, where hopefully they can get turned into a territory (or get annexed to MI) and finally leave us the f*ck alone. 
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Oh, I've seen wiring like that when inspecting or doing investigations in Div. 20, just to see the degree of redneck engineering here was beyond my mind.
Good news is that I put paperwork on another house right on the Cedar Park Leander border and it's only 12 years old. My only issue when I inspected it was the smoke detectors were out of date and a couple of screens were damaged. Well, I also need to redo the entire lawn. It doesn't have the scenery of the the other place, but I also don't have to buying a home based class A foam kit to protect the compound like at the other place. Oh, I did get to try the Round Rock Doughnuts last week and Krispy Kreme and Country Doughnuts has NOTHING close to compare with  
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