A New House - Part Duex,... and a Speech Contest too!

First, for the house info:
As you can see from the new picture below, I put in an offer on a totally different house. It only has a few (four) drawbacks as I see it (or things that conflict with items on my "dream-house" list), but I guess I can compromise on those or fix them. Here they are;

1) The subdivision is a lot tighter, meaning the lots are skinnier (but deeper) and therefore the houses are closer together. I've met one neighbor already and they seem really nice, plus this house is on a court (one house from the end of a cul-de-sac). That's great because cul-de-sacs tend to cut down on traffic and loud thumping music driving past your house all the time. If you know me you know I'll get into fights with assholes who drive past my house thumping bass. So far it seems that I'm cool with this subdivision. It has class. :)
Result: Not really a problem - if loud noise eventually becomes a problem, I'll complain to the neighborhood association and make them earn their $400 a year dues.

2) The house is on a slab instead of floor joists. This has always worried me as repair costs are higher for plumbing problems. I guess I'll deal with it. This also means it has no basement. This is disappointing seeing as now I won't have room for a pool table. But if I get to the point where I'm ready to buy one I can always build a bigass "storage building" out back to "store" my pool table. ;) The covenant says I can't build one over 20'x20'. Mine would be 25'x25' - Oops! Sorry, apparently I can't measure well.
Result: Not really a problem, but high added cost later - I am dealing with it.

3) There is no screened porch (I love screened porches). Maybe I'll figure out how to design and build one eventually. It will be tough considering the gable of the roof, but I know it can be done. There is no shelter under which I can put my grill. I'm going to keep my grill in the garage for now since it is CLOSE to impossible to drive my truck inside without turning in the side mirrors. No biggie, I park outside all the time as it is now anyway.
Result: A bit irked by small frikkin garages - not happy with this item entirely, but I'll deal with it.

4) The drainage on the lot seems "okay" - the only place that concerns me is in the backyard. But then again I have NOT yet seen this lot under a heavy rain. There is a slight hill that comes down toward the back patio prior to a small drainage trough taking it around the house to the front. It will be no problem for me to fix that given my civil engineering design years. :) But I think a simple solution would be to ditch-witch a trough to the front, lay in a pvc pipe, making sure it gravity feeds to the front ditch, and putting in a grated box in the back close to the patio, to take off excess standing water.
Result: fixable IF it is actually a problem - I guess I'll find out when it rains hard - and from the sound of it the builder would probably even ditch-witch it for me and give me the pvc

Secondly, the Speech Contest:
I started an annual speech competition last year. This year I had 2 former department chairs and the President of the University as judges. Each Public Speaking instructor (8 of us) had one student and his/her persuasion speech entered into the contest.

I raised the money and hosted it. $400 for 1st place, $300 for 2nd, $200 for 3rd, and $50 for each other place,.. plaques for each person, and certificates for each contestant ... not bad, eh? I think I did fairly well. :) Also, the contest speeches were recorded and McGraw-Hill publishers will transfer it to a DVD for me, which we will sell with next year's textbooks at cost + $1. These will make great sample speeches for our students. Those $1's will add up and be put into a fund for our department for eventually building a new speech lab. Groovy eh? :) It is even more groovy that MY student won 2nd place! Yay me! :)