Inexorably closer

Well, the house that we are buying is now listed as "sold" on the real estate agent's website so I guess it's full steam ahead.

We've done some financial jumping around and gotten all the bits sorted. There are still a few loose ends to tidy up and all our remaining junk to box up but it is coming together.

The motorbike project is on hold until further notice since I have to get a fresh car. As stated before, I'm sticking to my guns - manual, 5 speed with a towball. All other considerations secondary (apart from the obvious of it being licensed, running and so on). I'm not even fussed about the number of doors or even if it's a wagon.

Seen some interesting stuff on Gumtree and Craigslist, though CL is a little quiet in Perth as not as many people over here are aware of it. It's more popular over east.

House picked out

Well, looks like we have a place picked out. An offer has been made and accepted, the bank is talking to the settlement agent and hopefully we'll be good to go in a relatively short amount of time. How long that is depends on several things, most of which I'm probably not aware of.

Life in general is doing pretty good. Most of the stuff I bought on eBay arrived without major drama so it's all good on that front. I have two packages still in transit - one from the US and one from Europe which should both hopefully arrive before we move.

The car is still losing coolant, which is a pain but is still manageable. I still want a motorbike but it does not look like that will be happening any time soon. No major disasters this week, so everything appears to be coasting along nicely.

Memo to self: get the photos up...

Still thinking about the motorcycle

I am undecided.

One day, I'm all "oh noes, that would be terrible - not to mention dangerous!" and the next day I'm "hell yeah, this is an awesome idea!"

I'm looking at prices and it looks like it'd be a minimum outlay of around $4,000 for a banger - $3,000 for a bike (assuming I find a cheap one) and $1,000 for safety gear (helmet, jacket, gloves, boots, pants).

I can understand the safety gear being a bit dearish since you need it new, but what I find annoying is that everyone I speak to says "small engine bikes don't sell well, you won't get your money back on them" but all the under 250cc bikes I look at are about the same price as new. Which is kinda retarded. Even old bangers from the 80's are several thousand.

Unlike cars where it is easy to find a rolling bomb for under $500 which just needs a little tlc to keep it moving. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places. I wonder if it is worth the effort of finding a good wreckers and buy all the bits for the bike and then put it together myself?

Now that is a really bad idea...