Street View Comes to Birmingham

Thursday, December 11th, 2008 @ 9:17am

Google streetview has finally come to Birmingham. Huntsville has been in the system for a while, but I noticed that Birmingham was finally added to the list.

And yes, you can see my house from here.

Residential Associations

Friday, December 5th, 2008 @ 9:07pm

It’s time to rant.

I understand the purpose behind residential associations, and I have to say it could be a good idea if the so called “power” of members of the board was not abused. I have the feeling that there are at least a few members on the board who are on a power trip and have nothing better to do than to annoy and harass members of the community.

Let me explain: As some of you know, I have lived in a townhome community for the past 3 1/2 years. I’m sure several of you have received “tickets” for violating the rules of the community. Parking here is quite an ordeal as the streets themselves are poorly designed and are quite narrow, not really adequately designed to allow traffic here, but that’s another story.

Anyway, over these past 3 1/2 years we’ve received so called minor infractions on our record for parking, usually over silly things like blocking a mailbox (when we’re not) or parked on the grass (when the front bumper is hanging over the concrete pad by 2″). We’re quite sure it’s always the same person as we’ve had several run-ins with a neighbor across the street, but has not been anything other than a somewhat minor annoyance.

Until now.

Sometime around late August, my roommate’s car had broken down and he had it parked in the driveway until late October until I finally got him to move it to an overflow parking area so we could use the garage. Keep in mind, this parking area is away from anyone’s house and is rarely full. We thought it would be fine until we recently started getting notices complaining about the car being parked there for an extended period and that any parking here was only for day-to-day use. I figure it’s really not that big of a deal, ask him to move it a couple of times then not press the issue, since I don’t really care.

But here’s where the crap hits the fan. After a second notice we find that his passenger side car tires have both been slashed, which we find highly suspicious due to the fact that we already have someone complaining about nearly every little thing that we do so it should not be a coincidence that his car was vandalized. But it gets better, we find out that a week later his car was broken into, the electrical system ripped apart in addition to his radio stolen.

I’m normally a pretty understanding guy, but this has to stop. I don’t care what kind of problem you have with a person but vandalism is certainly not an answer, and I intend on pursuing this and finding out who it is. I hope whoever did this realizes that there is a potential for jail time in addition to hefty fine.

Needless to say, I’m tired of putting up with all of the crap that goes on here and the board with strict out-of-line senseless rules. I will be gone next year, and I will make sure to inform our land lady as to exactly why.