Date Archives November 2010

Work. After Hours.

in sideblog on

Some of my best work has come either early in the morning or late at night.

I have to show houses during “normal” hours, but I negotiate, write, think, create interact … at all hours.

… Enter Charlottesville Night Owls :

… I am consistently amazed at the cool things and creative people in Charlottesville.

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RealCentralVA.com is Now More Mobile-Friendly

in Blogging on

With prodding from Aera Mobile , I looked at the easy Wordpress options for making my site less of a pain to read on an Android or iPhone (and to a lesser degree, Blackberry). I installed another plugin a few weeks ago, but changed this morning to WP Touch at the suggestion of copyblogger . … There is some tweaking yet to be done, but this is an exponentially better mobile-reading experience. Thanks to Safari’s user agent switcher, I can easily emulate what my Charlottesville real estate blog looks like on an iPhone:

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Homebuyers – Caution on Radon, Builders’ Reps and No Representation

in Buyers General Real Estate on

Second issue, (The builder) missed his 11-month walk through of our home and it was encroaching upon our 12- month (final inspection of the home), so my husband and I agreed to have an official home inspector come into our home (as we know nothing about home construction). … Upon hearing the findings and what they meant we conducted research for remediation and also contacted (The builder) and set up an appointment to go over the findings of the inspection (the inspector also disclosed he had conducted the radon tests in (The Neighborhood) and stated that (The builder) knew he had a radon issue because one of his home sales almost did not go through until (The builder) remediated the issue). … We immediately contacted a mediator to address the issue (when the location of the home was made known to the remediator (Radon Company), the owner stated he remediated the other homes in (The Neighborhood) and this could have been prevented/mediated during the building process or prior to sale of the home if already constructed). … (The builder) returned an email that stipulated he would accept no responsibility for the radon issue but agreed to put 250 dollars towards the remediation, “because we were good people and had contributed to the neighborhood”.   The total cost of inspection and remediation is 1175 dollars.

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Some City of Charlottesville Schools to be Consolidated

in Charlottesville Education on

This should be interesting news to those considering relocating to the City of Charlottesville: Consolidating to have one middle school would also allow the division to combine its administrative offices and stop leasing city buildings for certain programs. … Preschool programs are located at the six elementary schools, but having one middle school will necessitate that preschoolers move into one location to have enough space for the fifth-graders.

…asked parent Kathryn Buzzoni, a Fluvanna County resident who has a kindergartener at Venable Elementary and was concerned that those costs could result in a cutback in other services.

I’m sure there are blogs in Charlottesville discussing this from the parents’ point of view, but I haven’t been able to locate them.

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Should Taxpayers Pay for a Subdivision’s Gratuitous Water Supply?

in Growth on

The Glenmore community has a single source of public drinking water, a 4-mile pipeline that runs along U.S. 250 east of Charlottesville. However, if Albemarle officials decide to add a backup storage tank, they will use $2 million of the county’s capital funds rather than ask the developers or Glenmore residents to pay for it.

“ It is not something that is needed to provide [water] for Glenmore,” said James Bowling IV, legal counsel for the Albemarle County Service Authority. “ It’s a convenience [but] one that you would certainly call a necessity if there was an emergency.”

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