Howdy Neighbour

OK. I've had another brain wave. I have to thank my real estate agent for this one. Jeff called me the other day to let me know that he has recently sold one of his properties. He had just purchased it, but decided to flip it as he was going to turn a nice little profit.

The downtown market is still hot. There are parts of the city where housing prices are certainly cooling off, but the downtown core is where it is at. This is where the brain wave comes in.

I'm going to visit my neighbour. The home that I purchased is a semi-detached and it yields a nice return on my investment. The rental income is great. I even end up with some positive cash flow on a monthly basis. This is fairly rare in the real estate world. Real estate is very cash hungry. It takes a lot of cash to make any money.

I want to visit my neighbor to see how much he is willing to sell his half of the house for. I'd like to know because having the whole building will be much better than just one half. If I wanted to do some work to the exterior for example, I will not have to consult with my neighbour about performing the repairs.

Now, I know I do not have the money right now. I'd have to sell my house in Stittsville. Although I've had it pretty good with the tenants, I want to maximize my investment by getting deeper in the downtown market. I'd hope that I could sell the house in Stittsville and use the proceeds to purchase the house downtown. There are a lot of steps required for this to happen, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to at least communicate with my neighbour about the possibilities of him selling. I think it is simply another rental property, so hopefully he doesn't mind taking some profits off of the table.

A's lose last game

The shirts have been fitted, the order will be placed, the A's will disappear. Exit Realty will be providing shirts and hats to the fastball club formerly known as the A's.

The A's played against the Knights tonight in a game where both teams did not look very sharp. There were mental errors on both sides, yet the game remained tight between last year's playoff finalists. The final score was 3-2 in favour of the Knights.

Early in the game, the Knights had loaded the bases and threatened to score some runs, but could not break the game open. The A's had struggled against Knights pitcher Ryan Cox for most of the night. Ryan's mix of speed kept the hitters off balance and limited their run production.

The game was 1-0 for most of the game. The Knights made it 2-0 in the top of the 6th, but the A's rallied in the bottom half and tied the game at 2-2. With the bases loaded, the A's looked poised to steal the game away from the Knights. I had made a baserunning error when I had thought the ball crossed the plate for ball 4. In fact, it was only ball 3 and the Knights were able to get out of the inning unscathed.

With the momentum from escaping possible danger, the Knights took full advantage in the top of the 7th and ended up scoring a run. With a man on third, the Knights batter had struck out but there was a passed ball. The A's were fortunate that there was some confusion on the batter's part, and were able to throw out the batter before the run from 3rd had counted. The A's would only be down by one run in the bottom of the 7th. With the strong bats of the A's, this was a real opportunity.

Unfortunately, the A's could only muster one hit in the bottom of the inning. They have not reached their championship form. Hopefully, the A's will be able to shake off the cobwebs in the coming weeks.

Johnny B. Good for Good ol' Boys

Last Thursday, in their season opener, Exit Realty tied their first game of the season 8-8 against the Good Ol' Boys. Exit was solid at the plate as demonstrated by their 8 runs, but ultimately could not prevent GOB from doing the same.

After taking an early lead, Exit was up 8-5 going into the bottom of the 7th. With a comfortable lead for their ace pitcher, Will Lowe, Exit looked like it was going to start the season strong. Unfortunately, Lowe struggled a little bit by given up a couple of base runners. He seemed to have regained his composure after he went up 2 strikes against the always dangerous John Tremblay. Unfortunately, Lowe missed his spot and gave up a solid shot to right-centre field. The ball was hit high and seemed to have just carried beyond the reach of centre-fielder Chad Featherstone. Tremblay had just hit a game-tying 3 run homerun.

Fortunately, Exit avoided complete collapse and managed to shut down the GOB's in the rest of the inning. Team Captain, Terry Jones, seemed particularly upset about the game. "We had that one!", exclaimed Jones. "We're ahead of where we were last year" retorted a positive Will Mood. "We lost our opener against these guys last year".

Exit Realty looks to rebound on Thursday night against the regular season champions, the Knights. Although many of the Knights and members of Exit Realty get along very well off the field, be prepared for a war on the field as the competitiveness between these players is very high. The Knights will be looking forward to avenging their loss in the finals of the BMFL playoffs to the A's.

A's gone, Exit in

It looks like the A's will be no longer. After many years of going under the Wally's A's moniker, the team has benefitted from some tremendous generosity from their 2nd baseman, Albert "AJ" Plant. AJ is the broker of record of Exit Realty. With a strength in the east-end of Ottawa, Exit provides a full range of brokerage services.

The A's were overdue for some new wear. With different players having different green jerseys from over the years, there were some players that had no jersey at all. As defending champs, it will be great to look like defending champions, or, at least, a team.

The jerseys were not available for the first game as there has been some "delays" in the procurement process. (ie. AJ didn't know when the season started). Hopefully, Exit will be able to show their new stuff within the next couple of weeks.

A's return to defend title on Thursday

Wally's A's return to the ball diamond after a long, long snowy winter. After dusting their equipment off, the A's look to return to BMFL supremacy. This year there are 11 returning players. There are only two players that are missing from our championship team, Dave Millette and Noel Hayes. Although these two players were instrumental to our playoff championship, we could not keep them as we had acquired them from the reserve list last year. This meant that they had to return to the BMFL through the draft. From my understanding, injury and a European vacation are to blame for their non-committal to play in the BMFL so far this year.

As a result, the A's have decided to go with a roster of 12 players this year. In order to do this, the A's have drafted Scott Cassidy. The A's felt confident in their selection after calling Scott to tell him the news. "When do we play?" asked an eager Cassidy. Secondly, "what do I do about beer?" was Scott's immediate second question. There is no question that Scott will fit in well with the A's.

The only major question this year is whether or not the team will remain called "Wally's A's". Numerous reports suggest that a mini, mini-Eugene Melnyk is thinking about sponsoring the team. Overdue for a fashion revival, the A's are hoping to go under the moniker of "Exit Realty" and acquiring some new jerseys to look as good as they play.

The A's open the season against the Good Ol' Boys on Thursday. GOB usually provides for a good game as they have some of the best hitters in the league. The key to the game for the A's will be to stay sharp defensively and keep the GOB on the pine and not the bases.

Norm Macdonald

Norm Macdonald is the shit.