Status Update on Unit 816: Contract Pending

This unit is listed by Long and Foster Realtors and may be found by using MLS no: AR7301407.

The listing price for this 916 sq-ft apt is $289,500.
Room dimensions:

Master Bedroom 17 x 12
Dining Room: 13 x 9
Living Room 20 x 13
Kitchen 14 x 8
Foyer 6 x 5

About Unit 826: it is spacious!

Saw some pics of this unit on Trulia.com and the pics are nice; 1172 sq feet is indeed spacious. This unit is sort of tucked away and the view isn't is good as some others, however, if you have watched Season 8 of the TV show, '24,' and saw how the character "Renee" met her demise, you could see the advantages of this kind of limited view.

See for yourself. the info and the pics are provided by the listing agent, ADMC Realty Group of RE/Max Colonial Homes.

Part of their listing blurb: "This extra large one-bedroom/1.5 bathroom home w/large west facing balcony (sunsets!) & southern horizon views from the spacious master bedrooms suite is a real gem! Gorgeous parquet wood floors throughout and the renovated kitchen w/ separate butlers entry, storage & handy breakfast bar make this a move-in-and-enjoy opportunity! Garage parking for TWO vehicles, an entertaining pavilion & gardens perfect for parties/cookouts, two outdoor pools, 24-hour front desk staff, security and in-house maintenance too!

These FULL SERVICE amenities + ALL UTILITIES are included in the modest condo fee."

Hyde Park's remark: The modest condo fee is a bit over $500 per month, so it all depends on your definition of modest. I am fact-checking the condo fee info w re to taxes, etc.

Bonanza of New Units for Sale at Hyde Park: May 2010

This is exciting stuff, and my notes below don't even include a foreclosure sale (unit number not known) for a 1 Br, listed as auction beginning at $255k.

NOW available for Sale:
Unit 826 , a 1Br plus den on the eighth floor, facing the North (Harris Teeter Grocery Store/Ballston/Cathedral side of the building. $315,000. 1172 square feet. On market more than 180 days, don't know how I missed it

**ADJOINING UNITS on 10th FLOOR, one is a corner 1-Bedroom:

Unit 1013 -1 Bedroom, 913 square feet. Listing # AR7285469. "Freshly painted, new stove and dishwasher." Listed at $315K, at last sale, April 2006, the purchase price was $350k


Unit 1012 - 1 Bedroom, 912 square feet Listing # AR7295912. "Want a beautifully upgraded home in an amenity-rich community, with the convenience of Ballston? Here it is! All NEW cabinets, granite, SS appliances, carpet, paint, ceramic tile, & more. Building amenities include a pool, park/grille/picnic area, convenience store, cleaners, garage, security, and same-level laundry. Condo fee includes all utils!! Just 5 blocks to Ballston METRO. Next door to Harris Teeter! $314,900 recently reduced.

New Units available at Hyde Park Condo

So let's get back to what really matters: available units at Hyde Park, how much they cost, and maybe (if there is time), how to come up with ideas on how to pay for one. (Just saw the movie '21' about clever students from M I T who spent their weekends on trips to Las Vegas, where they put their math skills to good use by counting cards at Casinos. I've ruled that out: a) gambling is immoral; b) the students in the movie were beaten up by the Mob, and in real life the students were prosecuted and went to prison. There is a third element: I can't even shuffle a deck of cards, do you think I could actually 'count' cards in a game of blackjack?

On to business: Listing AR7145655 is a THREE BEDROOM UNIT, listed at $475,000, as part of an estate sale. ($261 per square foot). Nice pics are listed at 'Trulia.com' This listing is for vacant apartment , no furnishings. Problem: 'estate sale' means someone died. If someone died -- as in, 'in the unit,' then I don't want it. This is not because I believe in ghosts. However why take any chances.

Listing AR 7214525, Hyde Park Unit #706, a two-bedroom corner unit, 1,077 total square feet, listed at $375,000. That would be $318 per square foot. The previous sale price for this apartment was $340,000 in November 2007.

And Now There is Haiti

Continuing on in the generally negative vein as in the last post, written in August 2009, let's take notice how 'disaster coverage' takes off on a life of its own. It can push everything else off of the air, off of the front page of every U.S. newspaper. Here in SoFLa, the Haiti story also engendered separate sections of color disaster photos.

Haiti is not part of the United States. If this tragedy had occurred in Guinea-Bissau, or in Kenya, Somalia, Zagreb or Vanuatu, it would be just as big a tragedy, but it wouldn't get 24/7 saturation coverage.

Fact: Haiti is 900 miles away from the U.S. Haiti is part of the island of Hispaniola, and adjoins the Spanish-speaking nation, the Dominican Republic. Haiti is Creole-speaking, and being mindful of that, the Dominican Republic guards is borders with soldiers armed with rifles and bayonets. The Dominicans may be concerned with the tragedy in Haiti, but they are not using this as a reason to permit a mass migration of Creole-speaking Haitians into the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic.

The Loss of a Liberal Lion

I was saddened to hear of the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, aged 77, earlier this week. However,whenever a single event pushes all other news items off of the front page for several days running, the average newshound finds this exasperating.

The day after Senator Kennedy's passing the New York Times devoted the entire top fold of the paper to his obituary (pre-written, in case you didn't know), including photographs and other tributes. The bottom fold had only two other news items.

When President Lyndon Johnson died in 1973 he was only awarded a single narrow top-of-the-fold column in the NYT. The reason is that he died on the same day the Roe v. Wade abortion decision was handed down. Therefore LBJ had to share the front page with that momentous Supreme Court decision and with other things too.

LBJ's death was reported in the paper on January 23, 1973. In that day and age, The New York Times, The Washington Post and most other U.S. papers had more actual news than do today's newspapers. Up until the last five years U.S, newspapers employed their own reporters, manned a Washington news bureau or at least hada correspondent stationed in DC. Many of the larger papers also operated their own foreign news bureaus. Tragically (for our Republic) many newspapers have shut down completely or they rely on excerpts from other news services or share resources with outfits that formerly were their competition. To beef up content daily papers add a lot of local sports coverage, especially at the high school level. (Which they already excelled at.)

Further crabby remark: and if I hear the phrase "Liberal Lion," just one more time...or any variation of it (Lion of the Senate), or if I hear any more references about the lionization of Ted Kennedy, then....

[Okay, it just happened: at approximately 7:20pm this evening, a FOX news reader just said, "The Liberal Lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy...."]

Mastering the Art of Stouffer's French Bread Pizza

Open the cardboard box; remove the pizzas from the cellophane wrap. Cook for 30 minutes at 350-degrees (in an oven.) Eat. Note: to save calories, only eat one of the pizzas, and save the other one for breakfast.

Vacation Week, Short Report Edition

Location: Vero Beach, on Florida’s Treasure Coast

Weather Report: Hotter than Hell, then some

Fun Event of the Week: Seeing the Shuttle Endeavor lift off from the beach (Cape Canaveral is 75 miles north). Yep. You could see it alright. It looked like a flare someone set off and it lasted for about 10-15 seconds. Then it was obscured by some annoying clouds.

Activities Summary: I promised myself to walk twice a day for an hour (nope); promised to be ‘on the wagon’ the whole week (no); promised not to eat a whole lot of fattening foods (didn’t happen).

Alcohol consumption report: 1 six-pack of ‘good’ beer (Harp Ale), $9.95; two frozen margaritas at Waldos, ($6.00 each plus tip), 2 cans of Mike’s Extra Hard Cranberry-Lemonade ($2.59 each at the Super Stop), one 12-oz bottle of Heineken ($1.69).

I really wanted to order a ‘top shelf’ Margarita over ice at Waldo’s, but they were $8 -$10 each, so I didn't. I watched the the young shorts-and-tanktopped blonde bartender as she mixed them. Expertly (for such a young lady) she deftly poured Patron Silver Tequila, Cointreau and Waldo's special Margarita Mix over glacier-sized icecubes into enormous glass goblets. These top-of-the-line Margaritas looked so icy cold and it was so fricken hot outside. A Magic chill-pill.

With just a fifth of Bacardi Rum and some Minute Maid frozen limeade, I would have made a batch of my own frozen daiquiris upstairs in the condo. The mini-kitchen has an adequate blender and there is an ice machine down in the lobby by the elevator. But no. I did not have a way to get to the mainland stores for rum or groceries, so I was stuck with beer or wine from the Super-Stop and whatever was in the vending machines. Darn. Now I really want to go make frozen daiquiris. (Horrible waste of calories.)

Signed,

Лиза

(Confession: the blonde bartender was really middle-aged and not young. I just embellished the story a little to make it more interesting.)

Two Apartments recently listed for Hyde Park

Hot off the presses:a 2 bedroom, 2 bath unit, No. 619, has been listed for $439,000. This is a corner unit and the total square footage is 1457. The listing has some very nice interior photos. AR 7117448

Also listed, a one bedroom, 1 bath recently renovated apartment, No. 301, is on the market for $332,000. MLS listing includes 28 photos, including some nice ones of the high-class Hyde Park lobby. As you will recall, HP Condo has a 24- hour desk attendant, is walking distance to the Ballston Metro, and is close to the Ballston Commons Galleria (two blocks away.) There is secure underground parking and easy access to both I-66 and I-95. AR 71221330

Signed

L S V

Лиза Вондрак: Лиза is not Лиса

Лиса sounds like the common American-English first name, but in the Russian language it is actually the word "fox," as someone informed me a few years ago.

Лиза is the spelling of the name, as found in Tschaikovsky's opera, 'Pique Dame,' which also known as The Queen of Spades. I think it's more fun and interesting to write in Cyrillic, sort of James Bond, 007. But if you'd like to know if I actually speak or read Russian, let me put it to you this way: no.

No more than I speak or read German, although after four years of high school German and two years of German at the college level, I ought to. I can pick my way through the libretto of The Magic Flute but that is only because I often peek at the English translation; and also because I know that opera well.

From time to time I like to pick up a German language magazine, even a 'hard' one, like "Der Spiegel," and try to make my way through it. Tough sledding. Basically I look at the pictures to see what is going on. Theis means I buy magazines like "Das Bild," and fashion magazines with American movie stars on the cover.

Foreign language hint: unless you exercise the foreign tongue daily - really immerse yourself in its lingo, you're not going to become proficient. This was one of the several reasons why I didn't complete a master's degree in International Affairs at George Washington University: first you must pass a reading comprehension test in a modern foreign language. Certainly I would have needed to hire a tutor to help me with that, and that is what I should have done. Foreign languages are cunning, that's all I can say.

Fun fact: in my sophomore college year, one of the German class assignments was to memorize and recite a poem in front of the whole group -of about 12 people. I was too petrified to do this, so I started to skip .........a lot. I used to joke to my roommate, Kathy, that I was a 'refugee from the German Department.' She thought that was funny. She should have said: stop being a moron and go to class.

Signed,

Лиза Вондрак

Unit 1028, One Bedroom, $318,000

So this is a listing for Hyde Park's Unit 1028, which means on the 10th out of 12 floors. I thought I could paste this from the Long & Foster real estate website but no: something-something HTML errors WTF whatever etc.

**That means I have to type the info in myself, G D I T H. Okay: abbreviated version: The mortgage as they figure it is around $1465 per month, condo fees are $557 per month which includes utilities. "Includes utilities" used to mean basic cable, but that was in 1982.......who knows what it means now. The listing says they also charge $100 per year for a parking space.

Taxes are estimated at $2647.

Room dimensions: LR: 20 x 11
Dining area: 13 x 11
Bedroom: 17 x 12
Kitchen 13 x 8
934 square feet, and balcony is a nice long one: accessible from LR and DR. Listing number AR7006818. In case you didn't know it, this is in the school zone for Washington Lee High School which is where both Shirley Maclaine and her brother, Warren Beatty went to high school.

Signed,

Лиза Вондрак