Thus, finding property that has an acre or more of land generally means looking for things that were built and homesteaded back in the 60s and 70s.

As I’m discovering…things built 40 years ago come with their own set of issues. Today we went and visited three properties; one on 3 acres, one that was supposed to be 2 acres, but was less than 1, and a third which I’ll leave for another day…because I actually kinda like it, and am going to go look at it again tomorrow.

Skyline Drive, Murphy, TX 75094

MLS# 11453532

What the listing agent said:

Murphy House Kitchen

RARE FIND!! To die for Ranch style home. Country living with acreage in the city! Upgraded kitchen with stainless steel appliances, upgraded cabinets and granite countertops! Huge bedrooms, wet bar in living room. You are going to fall in love with the Backyard oasis! Master bedroom has sliding glass door for private access. 288 sq ft workshop OR man cave in back. What a jewel! ***MUST SEE***

My impression from the pictures online, and the property details entered in the MLS by the agent was that it had great trees, a good neighborhood, good schools, a pool, one story…pretty much everything I was hoping for.

However, this 197o’s ranch house did not have the 2 acres that caused it to show up in my search list, (since corrected in the mls), it didn’t have two dining areas like the listing agent said it had, and what the hell is a man cave anyway?

It’s actually a really cute little house, with massive old trees, teeeeeeny closets, no storage space, and cracks in the wall, leading me to believe that there are probably some foundation issues either already happening, or very close to needing repair. The kitchen has been renovated, but nothing else in the house has been, which is kind of strange, unless the owners started to remodel, and then realized that the house wasn’t worth what they were going to spend.

The house wouldn’t work for us, but it would be fantastic home for someone with time/skill/ interest to renovate.  Knock out a few walls, put in some closets, level up the foundation (a really common issue in Texas), lose the mustard color paint, and there’s some real potential in this little baby.  Not for the listing price, mind you, but potential none the less.

4912 Sachse Road Sachse, TX 75048

MLS # 11251736 $325,000

What the listing agent said:

This traditional country home nestled on approximately 2.6 acres has it all, surrounded by large Live Oak Trees. Featuring hardwood floors, plantation shutters, built-in appliances and much more. Private backyard area complete with heated diving pool & spa. 30 x 40 air conditioned Work Shop, 24 x 26 barn with tack room and attached is a 18 x 26 Equipment Storage. Minutes to schools and shopping.

What the listing agent didn’t say: House has been on the market for over a year because the listing prices is double that of the tax value, and the tax value is generous.  Total tax value on the property is $161, 340, which assumes improvements that have not been made.

Sloping Kitchen of Dooooom

The foundation has been repaired, (again, not uncommon in this part of Texas), but it was repaired really, really, REALLY badly.  The house has a hill in the center of it.  From the kitchen island, were you wearing roller-skates, you would roll quickly into a wall in any given direction.  The slope is obvious enough that my 7 year old said “Wow, look how much of a hill is in the kitchen, mom! This would be great for matchbox cars!”.

The “master bedroom” was a converted garage, complete with the exterior brick wall still in place as one of the interior walls.  (Seriously, wouldn’t you at least drywall over that so you didn’t have exterior brick facia? What were they thinking?)  One cool thing? Floor safe.  I do love a hidden floor safe. The door from that room led into a garage.  Because who doesn’t want to smell exhaust fumes in bed, I ask you?  All the discomfort of living by mass transit, none of the groovy convenient access to the rest of the world.  Speaking of shopping, on the strip malls popping up right by this property were payday lenders, chop shops, washaterias, and no real grocery stores or name retailers.  None of which bespeak gentrification, and all of which suggest that the neighborhood is quickly going the wrong direction.

No closets, small rooms, teeny windows, exterior walls in the “bedroom” that used to be a garage, no level spot in the house…all in all, this was a “bulldoze and start over” project.  Land out that way is nowhere near 100k an acre, so I have no idea what the people who are selling this white elephant are thinking.

The third house; I liked.  I’m taking the husband tomorrow morning to look at it…and I think I might make an offer on it.  I’m also looking at 4 more properties tomorrow.  This house hunting thing, it’s a lot more work than anticipated.

Ok, keep in mind that I love 70’s architecture.  I do. I don’t know why.  But this house:  this screams 70’s Brady Bunch house. Love that!

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

The pictures on this listing suggest that the house is in need of some basic updating, but it really doesn’t look too bad.  In fact, it looks pretty groovy.  I mean, I thought the bathroom looked kinda small, and wondered why there weren’t pictures of the “cabana”…but the crime stats for the area looked good, the property values in the area were outstanding, it’s almost walking distance to the gifted and talented academies, and I could keep FIOS service.  I was actually really excited.  I don’t mind project houses when the projects aren’t overwhelming. This house though…I would have to own my own construction crew to make this even match the listing agent’s verbiage, who is a very creative writer.

For example, he didn’t happen to mention that the roof is 40 years old, there’s termite damage, the house has been rental property, there’s standing water in upstairs closets, there’s no air conditioning upstairs unless one counts the window unit being held in by silicon caulk and prayer.  The pool pump and heaters were broken, the “cabana” was some rotted fencing material around antique plumbing fixtures, and the dog run was chihuahua sized and filled with dog poop.

The trees so visible in the pictures are on the other side of the fence and don’t belong to this property.  The house hadn’t been cleaned since the last tenants moved, there was junk in the closets, the carpets were filthy, the drawers were dirty, the ovens hadn’t even been wiped out…frankly, ewwwh. The house has been on the market for over 100 days, there has been plenty of time for them to at least vacuum and wipe down the counters.

The few updates that had been done in the house had been done by either by the owners or the tenants, but no professional contractor could possibly have been responsible for those disasters.  At least I hope nobody got paid for that hot mess. The master bath configuration was the strangest thing and the only cure would have been to nuke it and start over.

Dial up microwave

The kitchen had ridiculous amounts of water damage and cabinet separations, and I don’t think it had been updated since the builder put it up in 1970.  Dig the groovy dial up microwave! It also had a working intercom system, that was a total throwback to how some of my friend’s parents used to call us all to dinner back in the day.  I actually love the intercom.

The rest of the house…not so much.  My realtor, whom I adore and have known for decades, is married to a fantastic general contractor.  I’ve used him to build various things around my current house, and to fix stuff in my old house before we sold it.  Both Annette (my realtor) and I are pretty experienced in building out and remodeling stuff, and have a pretty good head for running estimates as we tour properties.

Now, keep in mind, that at this price point; I expected to have to do renovations.  Nobody expects a house in this neighborhood, at that price point, to be perfect.  You do however, expect that they would have kept the house in a condition that means a bank would write a loan on it.  No bank anywhere is going to write a residential note on a house with a 40 year old roof, and standing water in water heater closets. Renovation note, yes. Residential note? Oh no.  And no flipper or renovator in the world would touch this monster at that price point.  Even fully repaired and remodeled, the top sale price you could hope for is around $300k…and that’s unlikely, with brand new 4000 square feet homes going in around this house at the $325k point.

Anyway; we took notes, and figured that it would cost over a thousand dollars just to get it inspected; house, pool, sewer and structural engineer…all of which you have to do with houses this old built in Texas…the ground moves here, often taking foundations with it…and then easily 80k in renovations; roof, kitchen, bath, new ducts and air units, so the upstairs was air conditioned, flooring, painting, drywall, fixing the pool, rebuilding the “cabana” …all of that assuming that there was nothing seriously wrong with the structure, the wiring, or the pipes.

Bless his heart, the listing agent for this property is a damn fine writer…but I can’t see this house selling for more than $125k to any knowledgeable buyer.

The quest continues.

I, on the other hand, live in Texas.  Texas homeowners who live in HOAs have lost virtually all of their property rights in the last decade.  (HOA=Home Owner’s Association).  HOAs are mandatory in most new developments, and fees range from $250 a year in lesser neighborhoods to thousands per year in gated communities.

See, the thing is, with a Texas HOA, is that they can auction off your property with almost no notice if they claim you owe them money, even if they can’t prove that they ever told you that you owed the money, and you’ve never been served with papers saying that they’re taking your house.  It’s all kinds of wrong.  Witness the case linked above, where an officer serving in Iraq had his $300,000 house stolen and sold out from under him by his HOA because he missed his $800 HOA fee while fighting for his country.

Anyway, my HOA hates me. We get letters about stupid stuff all the time.  The playset doesn’t match the house. The trampoline is visible because we were mandated to have a wrought iron fence instead of a privacy fence. We can’t park our cars in our garage because we have to hide the garbage cans in there, instead of beside the house like everyone else…because we don’t have a privacy fence. My all time favorite: We had too many dog toys in the back yard.  Yes, my dog had too many toys. And we had to remove my son’s $2000 cedar swing-set, playhouse and slide because cedar doesn’t match my brick and his slide was yellow. Keep in mind that all our neighbors with privacy fences have playsets and garden sheds, but because we’re by the pond, we can’t have a privacy fence, so my kid is not allowed to play in his yard. Yeah, they really are that insane.

I’ve never been good with authority, so I’ve set out on a quest for a new house, not in an HOA. I’m going to document the journey…the good, the bad and the frankly absurd that I’m finding in the DFW Metroplex house hunt.

To set the stage: Here are the parameters I’m using to search:

• Good schools (willing to go into high tax districts to get this)
• 2000 sq feet or bigger
• Mature trees
• 3+ bedrooms
• Enough yard space for 2 large dogs

Optional but preferred

• Pool
• One story
• Acreage

You wouldn’t think this would be too difficult…but oh, it is.  It really, really is.  HOAs are the Texas version of vampire squid wrapping their tentacles around all the best properties.

And so the quest begins.

The Lustie Family Visits the Zoo

I just got back from a fabulous week in Chicago spent with a friend of more years than either of us will admit in public, her charming husband and their newest addition; the best behaved baby in the universe. (Also, just about the cutest thing in diapers. And he has that new baby smell. Altogether, a groovy little dude.)

Here is the coolest family in Chicago, standing outside the entrance to the Lincoln Park Zoo; a zoo which is free to the public, and just one of the outstanding number of public areas, parks, venues, etc. that are scattered throughout Chicago.  I was also astounded by the sheer amount of statuary, art and exhibits  that are everywhere in this town…but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The whole time I was in Chicago, they were filming a new Transformer’s movie, and most of the shooting happened right around my hotel.  This made for some interesting traffic issues, but the most startling thing would be to hear random explosions, see huge clouds of dust, and hundreds of people completely ignoring it.  I jumped and squeaked the first time it happened, but by the end of the week, I was doing what the locals were doing; checking the news for the filming schedule, and then planning routes and schedules around them.

Cooper's Peach Farm

Monday:

The trip started by leaving the Dallas area, and heading into Houston, with a stop by the peach farm to grab a basket of peaches to take to grandmother’s.  (Hey, you never know when you’ll need Big Bad Wolf bait.)

Traffic was way better than expected, and we made it there in plenty of time to grab a quick swim, a canoe trip around the neighborhood, and a quiet night before handing off the Boy to his excited grandparents, and heading for the wilds of airport security.

A brief aside about security; are they just trying to make travel so miserable that everyone is willing to be sedated and put in a sealed tube and shipped like high-tech cattle?  Because air travel has become about the most miserable thing you can pay to do.  The entire theatre aspect of walking barefoot with your little plastic baggie of toothpaste is just absurd, and I cannot believe that millions of Americans are willing to go through this farce every single day. It’s ridiculous.

Tuesday:

Amalfi Hotel Exterior

But moving on.  I got lost a bit in the Chicago airport, but was rescued by the driver sent from my hotel.  Thank goodness for cell phones. After a bit of confusion, we made it to the Amalfi Hotel, in downtown Chicago.  I prefer boutique hotels above chain hotels, and at the price point, the Amalfi was a fantastic value. The interior is trendy, yet not obnoxious, the rooms are well appointed and sizable for a downtown hotel. My complaints about the hotel were so minor as to be insignificant for most travelers, I think.

(The towels were scratchy, and I never realized how important room service breakfast was until I had to wander the halls looking for coffee.  Their heavily promoted breakfast buffet is probably lovely for a one night stay, but becomes redundant and tiresome.  We visited the “cocktail hour” once, but quickly decided it was too annoying to bother with.)

Those quibbles aside, the staff was magnificent, the room was nice, and the price point was more than reasonable for a hotel with such a great location.

Hotel Burnham Interior

Edie and Mark met me at the hotel not long after I arrived, and took me to dinner at the historic Hotel Burnham, also in downtown.  The Hotel Burnham had been scheduled for demolition, as happened to a lot of the really old and fabulous architecture downtown. Fortunately, the renaissance of the area happened in time to save this treasure.  Many of the structure’s original details—marble wainscoting on ceilings and walls, terrazzo floors, mahogany trim, and ornamental elevator grills—were preserved during the 1999 renovation.

Best thing heard at the Hotel Burnham? Edie and I were standing in a hall like the one above, waiting for Mark, and two dapper elderly gentlemen in suits came hobbling out of the restaurant towards the door. They both took in the marble and the stunning wrought iron grillwork and one turned to the other and said “You know, this is the sort of hotel you take Someone Else’s wife.”  And with that, they linked arms and toddled off into the gloaming.  Edie and I were initially shocked, but then couldn’t stop laughing.  Well played, kindly old gents, well played.

Wednesday

The next day started bright and early with a walk from my hotel to the Art Institute of Chicago…one of the coolest museums I’ve seen in a long time.  We got there as the doors opened, and they had to throw us out at the end of the day.  We saw maybe, MAYBE 10% of the collections there in that time.  Although, to be fair, we did spend an extraordinary amount of time in the Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century exhibit because it was so utterly and absolutely fascinating.  The exhibit is touring, and if it comes within a few hundred miles of where you are, it is worth the trip to see. Stunning. Not to be missed.

Somehow, I seem to have lost most of my pictures from my cell phone of the day at the museum, but their online collection has much better representations than I could have captured. Bigger images from this mosaic can be seen at my Chicago Trip flickr page.

It was astounding to see American Gothic and Nighthawks in person, as well as the truly amazing collection of other American painters like Ivan Albright, O’Keefe, and an astounding array of modern artists.

We were all pretty wiped out after a day of trooping up and down stairs and around galleries and generally playing art tourists, so we pretty much called it a day and went off in our respective directions to soak our feet and let our brains recover from that much culture.

Thursday:

The next morning, while Edie and Baby had plans, I began my adventures bright and early.  After getting directions from the concierge,  I headed in the general direction of Navy Pier. Which I was assured was only a 10 minute walk from my hotel. I guess that’s true, if one assumes that a marathon runner is doing the walking, and not a short, fat lady with a sprained ankle.  Who gets lost.  Didja know that GPS doesn’t work underground?  Yeah. Me either.  On the upside; there is this whole freaking city under the city. It’s amazing. Part of the journey was a little spooky, but I don’t generally stand out as a tourist, and because my basic wardrobe is black, accentuated by black, I think most of the panhandlers assumed I was a staff member at any number of the hotels/restaurants/service industries that have service entrances underground. I didn’t get harassed at all.

Bronze Sculpture at Navy Pier

Eventually I found Navy Pier. Which is surrounded by more astounding sculpture. You’ll have to look at the big image of this picture to see all the texture and whatnot, but this couch is so realistic looking that I watched a number of people go sit down on it before they realized that metal under direct sunlight is HOT. Were I a crueler woman, I would have found this even more amusing than I did. Navy Pier itself is a bit of a tourist mecca, with a plethora of overpriced restaurants, gift shops, amusement rides, and tour docks.

Navy Pier Chicago

The history of it, however, is pretty amazing, and like a whole lot of Chicago, has a secret tucked away in the basement.  The pier itself is about 1.5 miles long, and terminates in a man made reef of sorts with a lighthouse at the end…although I never found a way to get to the light house.  The idea of the pier was the brainchild of Chicago’s foremost planner, Daniel Burnham, and has been in continual operation since 1916, including a stint as the nation’s primary training ground for fighter pilots in WWII.  They estimate that more than 200 fighter jets are at the bottom of the lake around the pier.

But the most astounding thing to see at Navy Pier is the Smith Family Museum of Stained Glass. In a trek that seems to stretch on forever, you can view more than 150 exquisitely displayed stained glass windows and other pieces that were rescued from demolition by the Smith Family. Included in the collection are some of the most astounding and huge Tiffany pieces I’ve ever seen. Truly, this is an awe inspiring collection, if you have any interest at all in this art form.  Clicking on the image will take you to a flickr page that should just have the stained glass images, if you wish to see them in ginormous OMG size.  The mosaic tends to clip the images, whereas my original shots seemed to work amazingly well for a cell phone camera.  HTC really did a great job with the Incredible.

After my jaunt on the pier, I was starving, but not at all interested in the tourist grub.  Fortunately, when I grabbed a cab, my driver was Polish, and upon my requesting  his recommendations for a real Polish meal, took me to a tiny little Polish place tucked away in a little residential neighborhood, where I stuffed myself silly on chłodnik, perogis, kołduny, cabbage and poppy seed pastries .  The cab driver came back for me about 45 minutes later and helped wedge me into the backseat where I made it back to the hotel just in time to get ready for:

(drumroll)

SECOND CITY…OMG!!!

Second City Main Theatre

We saw Spoiler Alert: Everybody Dies, and it was hysterical! Hysterical.  The show cast included Allison Bills, Shelly Gossman, Timothy Edward Mason, Sam Richardson, Tim Robinson and Emily Wilson. It was great fun. I only wish I’d had time to see more improv or go back for one of their improv only nights.

Goodness, this cast was funny.  It’s easy to see why so many of our comedy giants have come from this troupe. They were astoundingly tight, even though they cracked each other up on a regular basis. (Which really, just made it even funnier for the audience.)

Macy's on State Street

Friday:

The next day dawned cloudy and cool, and Edie and I set off for one of the greatest shopping meccas of all time: The Macy’s on State Street.   Housed in the old Marshall Field building, this store is a baroque homage to consumerism.

Vaulted mosaic tile roofs tower over you, supported by gold leafed columns, and marble floors inlaid with rare metals. Truly one of the more impressive historical retail places I’ve seen in America.  The lunch restaurant is legendary amongst the “ladies who lunch” set, and Edie and decided to do just that while we were there.

Really great food, good service, and at probably the most rational prices I’d seen anywhere in Chicago, surprisingly enough.

After Mark picked up Edie, I set out for a night of jazz, and had the best time at a little tiny place, tucked away near my hotel called Andy’s.  The bar had been in that location since prohibition.  They had pictures on the wall of the some of the true jazz greats that had graced the stage over the years…Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis.  I fell into conversation with a charming old man I called Mister Will.  Now, when I say old, I mean OLD. Older than his birthday. Tribal Elder. Ooooold. He proceeded to walk me through all the pictures and told me stories about the history of that area before the gentrification.  It was a fabulous night. I only wish I could replicate his speech in text, so I could share the magic.  It was amazing.  After a long night of stories and jazz, I wandered home so I could be up in time for:

Chicago from the river

Saturday:

Architecture Boat Tour!

Hosted by the Chicago History Museum, the tour took us all over the river running through the city, looking at new and old architecture and talking about how the city has changed over the years. The weather was cool and overcast, which made the time on the water so enjoyable, as it had been smoking hot most of the week I was there.

Critics say that no other city has influenced and embodied the state-of-the-art in high-rise design and modern architecture as prominently as Chicago: virtually every major architect has a signature building here.

We also got to see the construction site of the Chicago Spire, an ethereal 2,000-foot
tower by renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. If it is ever completed, The Spire will be the tallest structure in North America and the loftiest residential building anywhere. Currently construction is suspended for lack of funding.

It’s amazing how much there is to see if you’re an architecture junkie, especially when you realize that if it hadn’t been for the Chicago Fire and the architects who decided to go Up instead of Out, we’d have no skylines like Manhattan or Dallas.   The visionaries of plate glass and structural steel such as Jenney, Root, Burnham and Sullivan (Wright’s mentor) and Frank Lloyd Wright were responsible for the Chicago School of ingenious grillage foundations and steel-frame construction techniques that lifted all architecture heavenward.

I have to go back, just so I can go up in some of these buildings to try and get a closer look at the flourishes and decorative touches that were so much a part of the early building of this city.

After the boat tour, Edie and I headed to Millennium Park to grab Mark (who is the sound engineer there) and kidnap him for the few hours between shows he had.  And promptly made him get in Chicago traffic and take us to the zoo.  Where much fun was had by all.

Nom Nom; Tasty Tourist Femur

Except possibly the tourist who gave his life so this bear could have noms. The Lincoln Zoo is another one of those free public spaces that Chicago seems to have in such plenitude, and on a Saturday afternoon, the zoo was filled with families and children and laughter. It was lovely.

After that, we stopped by their fabulous walkup apartment by Lincoln Square. The building is a grand faded lady with gorgeous facade touches and an almost vertical staircase.  How Edie made it up and down four flights of those stairs while pregnant is a mystery.  That she can do it with a baby and a stroller just proves that she’s superwoman in dreads.

After I returned to the hotel, I got dressed for dinner, and went to Keefer’s.  Which, if you’re ever in Chicago, I recommend.  The foie gras was he most amazing I’ve had anywhere, including Paris.  The waiter recommended that I have the veal special as an entree, but I had to explain that unless it came with a Dalmatian coat and a chorus line singing “See My Vest“, that I couldn’t possibly have that much cruelty for dinner.  He didn’t understand.  Some people just don’t get me. However, if you go, have the sabayon lemon parfait. It may be the best thing I’ve ever eaten. So good.

I spent the rest of Saturday night retrieving all my crap from the various corners of the hotel room where they had landed and packing up for my flight on Sunday afternoon.

Greg and Friends perform at the HOB

Sunday – Leaving Chicago:

Sunday morning, we all headed to the House of Blues for the Gospel Brunch.  Edie and I remarked that it was the closest either of us had been to a church in decades. My opinion is that if church served bacon and waffles instead of wafers, I might show up more often.

I got to the airport hours and hours before my flight, but after the security nightmare, just barely got to the gate before it was time for boarding. They were absurd at O’Hare. I had to take off all my jewelry, remove the hair pins from my hair…they even took my Kindle apart and swabbed the interior.  I don’t know what the hell they were looking for.  My checked luggage obviously got the same going over; everything was all muddled together and streaked with grease when I picked up my bags in Houston.  Seriously people, do you really think housewives from Dallas are your primary vector for terror?  Oh…wait…  well, *that* kind of terror?  Really?  Sheesh.

Anyway, got back to Houston, after spending a fabulous plane ride talking with Drew Emborsky, The Crochet Dude, who is coincidentally, a friend of my friend Michael.  Small world.

Welcome Home!

Was so glad to see Boy! We snuggled up all the way to PawPaw and Grammy’s house, even after he passed out in the car.

Monday:

The next morning, we packed him up, loaded up Nanny Ogg (the Minivan of Dooom), and headed north. Whereupon, we were greeted with this:

Because nothing says Welcome Back to Texas like heatstroke.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip.  I can’t wait to go back and visit Chicago again. What a great town.

(Click here for a slideshow of all images, including those not used here.)

One of the things incredibly obvious with this decision, is that there were no women at that table.  Gender is the primary piece of meta data that can be easily gleaned from a real name.

I have been a female gamer since the days of bbs.  I know from harassment, trust me. This decision forces the female player base of WoW to do one of two things:

1. Not participate, and be effectively silenced or
2. Be harassed in text, and now possibly in real life.

With more than 1 in 12 women reporting that they’ve been stalked in real life, and more than 64% of women in a recent study reporting that they’ve been cyberstalked, “outing” the player base is an incredibly irresponsible decision.

I’ve written for a couple of gaming publications.  Mostly unpaid, small niche sites because I liked the people in the community and liked the people running the site/mag/whatever.  One or two of those sites decided that their writers were not allowed to remain anonymous, and could only publish using their real name…at which point, I stopped writing for them.

It’s not that I don’t publish under my real name; I do.  But I don’t publish under my real name in an arena where I’m likely to get stalkers…again; or get my old stalkers back.

Having my WoW account associated with my real name serves no purpose *to me*; it only serves a purpose for Activision/Blizzard.  I, the Paying Customer, derive no benefit from this policy.  In fact, I am effectively silenced, and do not have the full benefits of the game.  In response to similar points; an official post on the EU forums states:

We have been planning this change for a very long time. During this time, we have thought ahead about the scope and impact of this change and predicted that many people would no longer wish to post in the forums after this change goes live. We are fine with that….

Should the decision stand, even though I don’t often participate on the forums, this female gamer will be taking her consumer dollars to a company that realizes putting women at risk isn’t a profit center.

I will not pay to wear Blizzard’s burqa. I will not be silenced.

Man: Oh yeah?

Boy: Yeah. Was that Einstein’s theory?

Man: Wha? No.

Boy: Drats! I’m never going to hit on Einstein’s theory at this rate.

I got my first sailboat when I was about 8, and from that day on, I spent as much of my childhood on the water as I possibly could. Even though I left the coast when I went to college, and I’ve settled pretty far inland, I think in my head I’ve always assumed that some day, I’d be back by the beach.

And then I look at the absolute destruction being wrought by the BP oil disaster and weep. Because, at this rate, the beaches that I grew up loving, and hoped to show my son, will be naught but memories and photographs.

Already there were huge dead zones in the Gulf because of oil drilling, toxic dumping, and overfishing. The coral reefs have been in danger for more than a decade. But this spill? This could kill the entire Gulf, and then what the hell are we supposed to do?

Forty percent of America’s wetlands are in the Louisiana/Mississippi basin. They are in the direct line of fire from this spill. The wetlands are where the food like shrimp and fish lay breed. Without them, there is no habitat for those species, as well as the hundreds of other species that depend on the wetlands.

Oil is now being seen as far east as Florida. If it catches the loop current, it could travel all the way up the Atlantic.

This spill is unforgivable. We, as citizens, must stop deep ocean drilling. We must assume that all corporations are as negligent about safety and regulations as BP. We cannot survive another disaster like this. We need the oceans. We need the fish and the birds and the sea oats. We don’t need more plastic crap, or disposable bags or cars that get 10mpg.

We need to stop the billions of dollars in tax subsidies to the oil companies, and use that money to fund solar farms, wind farms, hydro electric, and efficiency research for existing tech like cars. This gluttonous draining of oil to the detriment of all other things has to stop.

We have to make it stop.