Things To Do Checklist: Fill & Download for Free

Sometimes, firefights drag on for a whole day or longer and there is a lot of ‘downtime’ where absolutely nothing happens. You are holed up in your position waiting for your orders or for the enemy to attack.Instead of getting bored, however, you have a zillion things to do: count your ammo, reassess the situation, check your weapons and equipment, smoke a cigarette, drink or eat, talk to your buddies and look if they need your help, and much more.After you have finished your checklist, you start all over again. When the moment has come where you have checked and rechecked everything and there is absolutely nothing left to do, you’ll most probably fall asleep.You are either too busy or too tired to be bored.

I've bought (and sold) a lot of homes (my mother says I buy homes like others buy shoes), and these are tips that have worked for me.Buy a home you can easily afford. A lot of people buy homes at the top of their range, and that's a huge mistake for most...never be a paycheck away from foreclosure or struggling.Find a house with bad aesthetics and fantastic "bones." Buy the house that looks decent on the outside but has internal superficial ugliness - gross paint, carpets, etc.. As long as the major systems are fantastic (plumbing, electrical, roofing, etc..), superficial things can be fixed and will add instant value.Buy the crappiest house in the nicest neighborhood you can. It will always sell for more than what you paid for it, if you put in some elbow grease.Get an amazing home inspector, and follow him/her around with a clipboard asking questions and writing down every little problem. Use it for negotiations, and later as a personal checklist of things to take care of.Be sure to get a "fixed" interest rate with your mortgage...and have great credit. No matter what happens in the market, you'll be grateful.Know your market. Go to Zillow and see what houses have sold for in your area, before making an offer...know how competitive the market is, so you know how competitively to bid - how long do homes stay on the market? I've offered prices $100K less than ask and gotten homes, but also gotten homes by offering the asking price.Look at the crime map for your area. There are beautiful cheap homes out there in neighborhoods you'd never want to live in. Don't be suckered in.Don't ever buy anything with an HOA. (additional fee for living there) - you can never get rid of it, it can go up, and you can never truly pay off your property.Think of additional income streams. Does it have an in-law apartment or space you could rent out or use for Air BnB? Could you rent out a room or two if you were in a jam?Have enough money down that you will not be paying PMI (mortgage insurance)...this can be hundreds a month that doesn't even go toward your balance. Your payment per month will be far lower.Renovate...this is not HGTV. If you buy something completely finished, you are likely wasting a ton of money, and overpaying. You can usually have everything you want for a price you can afford if you're willing to do the back end of it.Have a list of things that are "must-haves," things "that would be a +1 but wouldn't be dealbreakers." Know that going in.Don't be "wowed" or turned off by the appearance going in. They hire professional staging companies for a reason...to make the house more appealing. They also have trouble sometimes selling great homes because hoarders or messy people live there. Look beyond the grit, or beyond the flash.Think about maintenance. A place with a huge backyard might *seem* awesome...until you are mowing all day every Saturday just to keep up. Things to consider - long driveways (plowing in winter), big back yards (mowing/trimming), etc...These are just a few tips for a newb, but a lot of things come from experience also. If you have a friend in real estate, or know an experienced investor - take them with you when looking for homes - they'll often point out things you wouldn't have seen otherwise.

Q: The Apollo astronauts sometimes smuggled stuff into the spacecraft, such as golf balls.No they didn’t.Each astronaut was allotted a Personal Preference Kit, a little bag in which he could carry anything he liked as long at it fit in the bag, stayed under a weight budget, and didn’t endanger the mission.Buzz Aldrin brought wine which he used on the lunar surface to take the sacrament. Gene Cernan brought a family photo and a camera timer. Dave Scot brought an aluminium placard and sculpture to commemorate those lost to space exploration.The golf balls you refer to were explicitly approved ahead of time. Al Shepherd had gotten the idea from comedian Bob Hope, who quipped about hitting a ball on the moon while the two were playing. Al thought it a fine idea, and as the astronauts were constantly being encouraged to do things to help make the program relatable to Joe Taxpayer, he asked the golf pro and the River Oaks country club if he could modify a club head to fit the end of the contingency sample collector. This was essentially an aluminium pooper-scooper meant to collect a quick sample at the start of the first EVA, just in case something went wrong and they had to leave the moon in a hurry. After that, it was useless, so there was no mission reason Al couldn’t remove the scoop, attach the club head and try to hit a couple of balls.He took the idea to his superiors, explaining that he would carry the balls and head in his PPK and wait till the end of the mission to try it. If anything had gone even a little wrong, he wouldn’t do it, so as to avoid any appearance of goofing off that might embarrass the program. This was approved, and there are now three golf balls on the moon.Q: What was the response of NASA when they realized?The closest thing to a surprise came during Apollo 15 when, during a planned break in the schedule, Dave Scott announced that he wanted to deploy his memorial. Mission control was unprepared for this but by all accounts thought it a touching and fitting thing to do. The only problem came later when the artist Scott had commissioned to make the “Fallen Astronaut” sculpture tried to profit by the association, infuriating NASA management.Also after Apollo 15, it was found that the crew had accepted a payment to carry postcards to the moon. NASA had no problem with the postcards if they wanted to bring them for gifts, but it did have a problem with the payment. The crew were reprimanded and removed from the backup for Apollo 17.After that, PPKs were inspected before launch.The only things actually smuggled onto the moon were the Playboy nudes taped into the checklists attached to the spacesuit cuffs on Apollo 12 and placed far enough in so as to go unnoticed till the crew were out on the moon. That was done by the prep crews or another astronaut as a little bit of humor, and as far as I know was pointedly ignored by NASA managers.