Compassionate Flights

It was somewhat remarkable when finding our temps hovering around thirty-five degrees this morning, and you can be sure I'm enjoying every above-freezing day we get. Later this afternoon I happened to read where a meteorologist is predicting we'll be getting hit with another arctic vortex/wobbling jet stream next month, but didn't indicate what areas of our country it'll be affecting. Just the other day when mentioning our weather, a codger managed to get in my face and start insisting there's no such thing as climate change or global warming, and fortunately I managed to break away by saying I was already late for an appointment. Wicked little me.

The only out of office appointment I had, was to go and do a full inspection of a home that'll likely be coming on the market, and in spite of it being in desperate need of cosmetics, the bones are good, the mechanicals are up to date, and the location is popular, so after I did my inspection, I headed back to office and spent an hour or two doing some digging for comparable sales, and luckily I found four which were close enough to use when visiting with the owner, so likely next week sometime, I'll be meeting up with the titleholder to go over my numbers.

While I was out, I stopped and checked on several vacant properties, just to make sure their furnaces were working properly. Of course I'm very good at regurgitating past conversations in my mind, and one of them happened to be a recent story I was told about a country property a causal acquaintance of mine owns in another State. They'd not been there to check on it in several years, and of course they didn't have anyone hired to do random drive-byes, so when an investor from out West got ahold of them about buying it, they jumped at the chance at making a fat killing on their investment, but when that prospective buyer called someone to go and check it out before he sent the contract out for signatures, the owners got a call back saying the deal was off because the person who checked on it told him there were squatters living there, and from what he could see, it was pretty much trashed on the inside, so it sounds like the owners will be spending a good month or two doing a rehab before putting it on the market. I'm sure they're not going to waste any time selling it once it's put back in shape. My gosh! I can't believe how naive some are when thinking a vacant country home will take care of itself. Oh well, it's all part of the learning curve.

I received a call from a buyer wanting to look at a recently listed home today which showed it was still available, so when I sent a text to the listing agent, I was told it was already under contract with a solid cash buyer. Ugh! Oh if I don't hate it when my competitors don't post their sales as either active contingent or pending, and in my mind there's only two reasons, which is they're forgetful, or doing it on purpose, just to get a few more buyers calling them on it, and then do a bait and switch. Naughty, naughty.

It was cleaning time again at my office where I spent a good hour wiping down cabinets, furniture, and display items. I certainly got a good awakening when climbing up to the top of a tall cabinet and finding a generous later of dust which came as no surprise because it's too long since I got my step stool out and looked up there. Like they say, out of sight, out of mind.

With some free time handy and back to feeling up to it, I headed over to a project I mothballed for well over a week, and in spite of telling myself I'd be there for only about an hour or so, I ended up toiling away for a good three hours, but at least I'm now nearly done with that nasty project, so if I have a couple hours free tomorrow, I'll be able to get the last of it done, and definitely something I'll not want to tackle again anytime soon. That little 'paying it forward' ended up being a far bigger payment than I was expecting. Oh well, it'll be over with so I can get back to my own little/big project.

When I returned to office, I sat down at my computer and went flying thru the news feeds, and one of the articles which was in the Globe Gazette, was the most touching because I discovered there's a guy living in our area who's a crop-duster by trade and of course owns an airplane, who out of the goodness of his heart, offers compassionate flights for financially struggling people to various hospitals and clinics in the Midwest, just so they can get the medical help they're needing without having to pay an arm and a leg to get there and back.

Just when you think nearly our entire population has turned into selfish money-grubbing individuals, someone like him comes along, so perhaps there is hope for the rest of us. I'm likely going to do a little research on my own as to where his mailing address is, and send him a card with some words of thanks. As I've said many times, we must work hard at reminding ourselves to give thanks and praise to those who step out of their selfish lives and freely do for others, because far too often, we're busy getting after those who've done wrong, while overlooking those who're doing right. So please remember my words and start praising those do-gooders.

The clarinetist I worked with earlier this week, scheduled another practice session for next, but this time around, there'll be another clarinetist joining-in, so hopefully it'll be a good enough session to where we'll soon get ourselves scheduled to play for St. Paul Lutheran's members. After practicing the accompaniment to that piece a few more times, I'm slowly getting it up to speed, so I should be comfortable enough with it by the time they arrive.

Just before heading home, I sat down at piano and started practicing the difficult piece I've been working on and now thinking about playing it for those clarinetists next week.

Tonight's One-liner is: Sacrificing yourself for a bad cause is not a moral act.

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