Land Value ‘Correction’ Surprises Homeowners
It comes as no surprise to me, people are pissed about the arrogance of the county assessors in revaluing the land our houses sit on. According to them, their staff "placed emphasis on the review of land assessments to determine if they adequately reflected market value." Coincidentally, this resulted in most assessments staying relatively steady compared to last year. Here's the problem I have with this "emphasis": there is no way the wood, metal, and drywall my house is made of dropped in value by $125k in a year. I do believe that the land value is probably accurate, now. But it bugs me that it went up all at once, rather than gradually over the course of the past three years, when it has stayed constant. If they had "equalized" the land and building values slowly over the course of three years, $40k at a time, a lot less people would be accusing them of cooking the books. Many of the Board of Supervisors agree.
Supervisor Jeff C. McKay (D-Lee) said he has asked County Attorney David P. Bobzien for an opinion on whether the board can challenge the tax department's methodology and push for a reassessment of values. He said the agency is playing a questionable game of catch-up.
"It appears that we are behind in keeping up on raw land, and now to bury that, we depreciated people's structures, all in one year," he said.
I don't envy their position. It's a paradox: empty lots sell for nearly as much as existing homes on similar lots, but it would be nigh impossible to rebuild my home for the amount they say it is worth.
At any rate, regardless of their position, I've been researching recent home sales in my area, and I believe I have a legitimate appeal, regardless of their land emphasis. Thankfully, I have a wonderful tool in Zillow to help me in my efforts. The Irishman in me really does love a confrontation!
World on Fire
Stumbled across this video and noticed that one of the organizations they donated to was Shane's Heifer International. I seriously HATE Sally Struthers and her commercials, but this video made me bookmark their donation page for future charity giving. Stay tuned, as I have the feeling there is something in my head that will come out of this.
The more we take the less we become
The fortune of one man means less for some
Obligations
OK, so Shane did this to me over on his blog, and I'm returning the favor. First things first, to answer his question: I work for CACI, a government contractor. If I told you anything else, I'd have to kill you. That should be enough hint (not quite State Department).
So, to the readers, comment on this post, and I will:
1. Tell you why I am friends with you.
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a color, a photo, a word etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
6. In return, you must post this to your own journal/blog.
There you go, have at it.
Bringing The Funny
I have been cracking up all day at Stuff White People Like. Mainly because I am guilty of many of the things mentioned (so far: #75, 71, 64, 63, 62, etc).
Within white culture, it is agreed upon that if Canada had better weather it would be a perfect place.
Daylight Savings is a Crock!
It should come as little surprise to anyone who has thought about it, but now there is scientific proof: daylight savings time wastes, not reduces, energy.
In Indiana, daylight savings was previously observed by 15 of the 92 counties, creating a lot of confusion when your neighbor's clock was an hour off from yours. The legislature thus passed a law mandating daylight savings throughout the state, and researchers took the opportunity to study the law's effect on energy usage. The result? Residential electricity usage increased between 1% and 4%, amounting to $8.6 million a year.
What a Farce
So the latest housing assessments for our county came out on Friday. I'm feeling another challenge coming on, because this is getting plain ridiculous. In 2005, I successfully challenged them because they had clearly made an error in their assessment. This time, I may have to challenge them just for spite. On every house around me, including ours, the "building" portion of the assessed value went down by $125k. Good news, right? Sure, except that the "land" portion went UP by the EXACT same amount: $125k. The net effect is that our house has now had the exact same assessed value for the past three years running. What a load of crap. According to the county's news release, 26,261 homes had their land and building values change, but not the overall assessment. Most interesting. The Vienna area in general had a -0.10% change in assessment values, which shows me that a lot of those 26,261 are in Vienna.
Time to go start gathering my evidence again. I've already found one "comparable" home that sold last August for $20k less than their assessed value. This should be fun.
Allagash Grand Cru
Lovely hazy orange color, with a good head that leaves great lacing on my tulip glass. The tulip glass funnels the spicy orange (and slight yeast?) aroma nicely to my nose.
The immediate taste hitting my tongue is of a mild fruitiness, mainly orange. The spiciness of the flavor lingers in the back of my throat: cloves mostly, with some other peppery minglings as well.
I really only get a hint of the high-ish alcohol content, which is good. Goes down smooth, but for that little bit of bite.
Overall Rating: 4.5
Red Meat Free Week
In honor of Shane's sacrifice, our family went without red meat all this week. Honestly, it's not a huge deviation from our normal weekly menu which regularly features a vegetarian meal and a soup of the week, but it did take some effort to make sure we didn't slip.
On Saturday night, we hit up Skorpio Maggio's Restaurant for a chicken dinner. Damn good chicken, as DCist said in its review.
On Sunday, we had a late lunch at Dogfish Head Alehouse in Falls Church. I had been wanting to go there for a while, and since we were nowhere near the area, we stopped by for a turkey club (my wife), and fish and chips (me and Ellie). I also had a nice Chicory Stout, though I was mildly disappointed that they didn't have any limited/seasonal releases on tap. Guess I'll have to go back. For dinner on Sunday, we had chicken leftovers.
On Monday, I had my usual turkey sandwich for lunch, and I stopped by Chipotle on the way to curling for a Carnitas (pork) burrito bol. The rest of the family had homemade pizza.
On Tuesday night, we had chili garlic tilapia (prepackaged from Trader Joe's) with broccoli and brown rice.
On Wednesday night, we had dijon herb salmon with roasted potatoes and bok choy. Very yummy.
On Thursday night, we had mushroom/asiago/marscapone ravioli, which was okay, but Lisa liked it a lot.
On the menu for tonight and tomorrow are BBQ pork and lemon curry chicken soup.
But we're not stopping there. Last night, Lisa asked if I wanted to do a second week! She didn't think it was "that hard," so we agreed to go another week without red meat. I'm pretty sure we won't make it to Memorial Day though.
Moving The Awakening
Many people have never seen this during their visits to DC, as it's definitely off the beaten path, on Hains Point. I ran by it during the Marine Corps Marathon way back when, but I don't remember too much about that time.
The Awakening is a large sculpture that looks like a giant trying to claw its way out of the ground. They dug it up and moved it to a new location yesterday, which much have puzzled quite a few drivers along the moving route.
Duma Key
Duma Key by Stephen King
My review
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Another year, another Stephen King novel. It's another good read, though I imagine it would make a better movie, with the protagonist's paintings coming to life and such. (They don't actually come to life, but that's what I picture the movie doing.) This is another novel that sort of hits on the accident where King was hit by a car while walking along the side of the road, as the protagonist had an accident in which he lost his right arm and has phantom itches in the missing arm. Only his itches end up pouring out through the other arm into his surreal and supernatural paintings. Oh, and his missing arm occasionally makes an appearance, this being a King novel and all. All in all, typical King, fast-paced, creepy, lots of fun to read.
Next up is My Revolutions by Hari Kunzru.
Books
My Goodreads ListAmazon Wishlist
GSI Outdoors JavaGrind
