Finding a place to live

by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)

The wife and I have been looking for a house for a few years now. I have this map of West Fort Worth that I have meticulous colored blue (in certain areas). The map (in this general area) is from Crestwood (North of Greenwood Cemetery) and West to Ridgely (somewhat near Ridgmar mall). In that area (which is fairly big) is where I want to live. I have been semi-successful having lived a few times in this area. I can’t tell you why I want to live there sooooo bad. I just do. It has been a focus of my life for many years now.

In the mid 90’s I moved into the Chapparal Apartments behind the (now closed) Minyard’s Food Store off Hulen and Campbowie. My best friend Barrett lived with me there until he moved back to his dad’s in Missouri (oh the pain!). I had my other (previous best high school) friend Eric move in with me for a while then I had to move home after bills were just too much to handle.

In 2000 I moved to far West Fort Worth in one of those apartments off Normandale then shortly I found a nice tiny guest house off Collinwood near Campbowie. I was there for about a year before I had to move back home (after my security position was eliminated). If you have ever followed the story of According To Whim you will know that it is at that Apartment I first met Miguel then at that guest house that I first met Chris. There are couple of tid-bits here about that.

In 2002 I moved off Haskell next to the North Texas Health Science Center (then it was Fort Worth Osteopathic Hospital). I lived in a tiny above garage apartment right across from Osteopathinc’s parking lot. Just as a fun note, my friend James worked (and still does) at the Health Science Center and would spend his lunches at my place (doing who knows what). After my comic book shop failed I moved back to Joshua. Oh, yeah it was also during my time here that Chris introduced me to the GREATEST GAME EVER: NetRunner! We spent so many hours playing that. Chris also had a bad wreck one night after leaving my place and shattered his jawbone. Maybe he could write a blog about that…

In 2005 my new wife and I moved off Calmont Ave and I-30. This was a noisy house being right in front of a very busy freeway. You can see this in several of the post Season 1 sketches (but before any Season 2 stuff). We bought a house in 2006 in the sticks (South of Decatur) and that is where you will find all of Season 2 and many other sketches made.

We have been looking to get back into the city since my wife finished her RRT schooling. We have been watching the rental market for quite some time. We had a lot of luck with our previous rental company Specialized Property Management so we kept an eye on them. We have tried to sell our house for nearly two years now but the economy has made that very difficult. We are financially sound now and we can afford to keep both places until we can unload our country estate (or vacation home as we now call it).

This week a house popped up on the SPM website which is smack-dab in the ‘blue’ area. It is off Western Ave in Arlington Heights. This is the ideal area… in fact it is kinda strange because if you look at this map again (of my first apartment off Byers from the 90’s)… the white road that dead ends in font of the apartment building, dead ends into the back yard of the house we found. See, look again. That’s kinda freaky huh? It’s an old house (just what I like). I am not one of these types that like new construction. I like all these houses in the area because they have ‘character’. Anyway we looked at it and liked it. We are going to get it and live there.
So expect lots of new shooting at this new/old location.

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