So, did we get the house? Erm... no. We were outbid (and the realtor wasn't at liberty to tell us by how much, but he did let slip that it was by a matter of a few hundred dollars).

Yes. A few hundred. Less than we pay for rent, and we could be in our own house. C'est la vie, I suppose.

We did look around another one recently. Just a quarter of a mile from the house we lost out on. It seemed perfect. Then came the sob story. The woman was selling because she and her kids were moving to South Carolina (quite a way away) but she wasn't moving just yet. She has a daughter in a local hospital and the buyer of the house would have to agree to have her, her biker boyfriend and her other two kids lodge in the house until "around May, possibly June next year". We don't know what's wrong with the daughter, but half a year in hospital? What if it takes longer than six months? What if she's in there for a year or two?

We also discovered (thanks to our insistence on looking at the declaration of sale) that there was a fire in the house a couple of years back. Her son was "playing with matches that were lying around" and caused enough damage that $47,000 worth of work was done on the house. This could be seen as a plus... the house is now certifiably stable and has electrics that are up-to-code... however, who wants to buy a house knowing that tbe little firestarter is still in the house and may decide to "play with matches" again once the house is in someone else's name? Obviously, we're not buying that house.

Beth's brother got married to his long time girlfriend on the 17th of October. It happened in Las Vegas and a bunch of us flew out there for a long weekend (Thursday to Sunday) to be there for the ceremony. I took the cheap digital camera (cheap, and it shows!) and used the pictures to make a little photo gallery for the happy couple. It also records the fun we had. Here are the photos (if you want to take a peek). There are around 50 pictures in there, so it could take you half an hour just to whistle through them and read the comments at the bottom of the pages. Making little web-sites like this is a lot of fun... well, it is for me.

Oh, and my latest eBay purchase should be here soon... a CD burner. Yay!!!

Listen : Absurd - Fluke.