Author Archives: John

Harbor Phases 23 and 25

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Thanks once again to Carl for the average price information for today’s two releases; both Harbor charts and master plan are updated.

There was a lot of (mostly) good discussion on the last thread about the less visible costs of buying a new home (and I don’t think that Warmington is much different here) that all potential buyers should take into account (whether it be upgrades or just the costs associated with purchasing a house).

One thing I think that Warmington is not doing as well as other builders on though is documenting the upgrades that are in the models and the cost of each one. Most other places I’ve been have a table on the wall in each model stating what had been upgraded, and how much each upgrade would cost. They also tend to have that information included in the marketing materials. Perhaps this is an area that Warmington could improve on, maybe adding a page or two to the Bayport Alameda website to capture this important information.

Satan’s Laundromat: West Oakland

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Satan’s Laundromat, normally resident in New York, appears to be out here on the west coast. Yesterday there were shots from Redwood City and San Mateo, today from West Oakland. The shot on the right, from the West Oakland collection, appears to be a discarded Apple keyboard – clearly a much higher grade of trash in the bay area 🙂

Maybe tomorrow’s series will be taken here on Alameda, only a stones throw from West Oakland…

More PhotoSydney

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Have been catching up on my blog reading (following a week away from the net in Mexico and the inevitable week of catching up with work and email), and discovered a number of photos over at PhotoSydney that caught my eye:

  • A close up shot of a barb in a barbed wire fence in the Magic Kingdom, Lansvale post
  • A macro shot of some beer bottles in the Lunchtime Macros post
  • Umbrellas in a trash can following a windy day in the Windy City post (check out the surfing photos in this post too)

Safari West

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Friday found most of the folks from Devicescape up at Safari West in Santa Rosa for an African safari in California! The safari was a blast – a drive around the 400 acre preserve in an open safari jeep with a driver who knows about everything you’re going to see. Unlike the more commercial drive-through safari places (such as Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida), this one stops regularly allowing the occupants to get photos, hear about the animals and ask questions. It also allows the animals check out the vehicle and its occupants (sometimes close up).

The ostrich on the right took a fancy to one of the guys in our jeep, and she repeatedly pulled at his shirt sleeve despite several attempts to discourage her (gently of course). The photo was taken while she was checking out the camera – from about a foot in front of it. We were also examined by a giraffe and watched by the cape buffalo from a few feet away as we passed by.

After lunch, we took a guided walking tour of the aviary and had some more closeup time with the giraffes before heading back to San Francisco.

Chichén Itzá

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I have posted a few of the photos I took in Mexico to a new photo gallery. These were all taken at Chichén Itzá – the shot on the right is the El Castillo: the large pyramid in the centre of the site. If you visit the site, and are not afraid of heights at all, you can climb to the temple at the top of the 91 steps.

Other shots in the gallery include photos of the columns in the Plaza of the Thousand Columns (although our guide told us there were only 416 columns), the Temple of the Warriors and some of the stone snake heads that are all over the site.

Phases 21 & 22

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Thanks to Carl & JL for the average price information from last weekend’s two releases – we were down in Houston for the weekend (on the way back from a little trip to Cancun), so we couldn’t be there. The master plan has also been updated to reflect the newly sold phases.

Hidden Detail

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I have plumbers working on my apartment at the moment. They are replacing all the pipes in the whole building, and also fitting new taps, sinks etc (a pretty big job, especially since they have to leave everything in working order at the end of each day). On the first day (last Friday), they came and cut a hole in one of the walls in my hallway, behind the kitchen sink, to reveal the plumbing. Over the weekend, since I had the hole there, I decided to snap a few close-ups of something that is normally hidden away (and has probably been hidden ever since the building was built all those years ago). The white dust you can see in the photo is the only evidence of the hole that they cut in the plasterboard (these guys are so good that they even painted around the edges of the hole to prevent more dust).

Charts & Plan Updated

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I have finally updated the charts with the average prices that Carl kindly posted again. I’ve also rescaled the three charts to cope with the fact that plan 12 was over $1M (which was the upper limit on the y-axis previously).

I’ve also greyed out phase 19 in the master plan. Sorry it took so long this time. New charts for all the groups are below.

Spriggs Photoblog

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Check out Grif’s (relatively) new photoblog. For a long time he has been posting photos mixed in with his other posts to his main blog. Now he has separated the photos out into their own blog, and he manages to post a new shot pretty much every day (which is many more than I manage). I liked today’s one (shown on the right), but that’s probably not a surprise given my own current fascination with macro shots of flowers and other plants.