Tag: Personal

It seems that many charities have walks, runs, etc. to raise money and awareness for their cause. The MS (Multiple Sclerosis) Society is no different. Last year my wife decided to walk in the MS Challenge Walk, a 3-day, 50 mile walk. For her, this walk was very personal as her mother (my mother-in-law) has had MS for many years.

At the end of the walk last year, my wife said she wanted to do it again this year as she had a great experience and wanted to know if I’d walk with her. Of course, I’d walk with her and support her (and the MS Society). So now the begging, pleading, and hitting up everyone I know begins. In order to participate in the walk, I have to raise $2500 by September. I’m not one to go knocking on doors asking for money, but I’m going to knock on your virtual door.

Most people have charities that he or she donates to each year. If you’re one of those people and don’t normally donate to the MS Society, please consider diverting a small amount of your yearly donation to help sponsor me for the walk.

All you have to do is visit my personal donation page and make a donation. If you work for a company that matches your donation, don’t forget to find your company at the bottom of the donation page.

Like the famous people that host telethons say, “every dollar counts”. Please help me reach my goal.

When we looked at our rental house, we said we’d take it almost immediately, but it wasn’t until we got home that we realized it didn’t have a dishwasher. Was this a deal breaker for us? It wasn’t, but made us think. My resourceful wife looked on Craigslist and found a portable dishwasher within a few days. I picked it up for $65 and brought it home.

After we moved into the rental, I got a $5 part from The Home Depot to hook it to the kitchen faucet and then we tested it out. So now that we had a working dishwasher albeit a little inconvenient, the question comes down to will we use it or wash dishes by hand? In our first few days in the house, the question answered itself. We’ve loaded up the dishwasher and run it every few days.

I have no problem washing dishes after family comes over or there are a lot of dishes, but washing a bunch of silverware, glasses, and plates is for the birds. It is time consuming and, in fact, uses much more water than a dishwasher. I know that people survived without dishwashers, but they also survived without computers and the Internet.

I’m going to have to say that an automatic dishwasher (I don’t count as a dishwasher) is a necessity in today’s life. Why should we have to do the manual labor when we have a machine to do it?

One of the big decisions we had to make after we decided to sell our house was finding a seller’s agent. We decided to interview four agents to see what they could do to sell our house quickly for the maximum amount possible. We picked 2 agents that worked in our area, 1 agent from the area we wanted to move to and 1 agent that was a referral from a friend. Before we started, we had a number in mind for what we wanted to list the house and another number for the lowest we’d sell.

All of the agents had the same data for sales comparables. Each one chose to interpret it differently; our area only had about 20 houses sold all of last year and very few for the size of house we had. 1 agent basically used the data from houses for sale and not sold houses as his first number, but then revised his number based on average depreciation since we bought. His number turned out to be pretty good. The next agent who worked in our area for 30 years, used data for the last 90 days and came up with a number that was about 10% below what others said. The other agent from our area also came in low. The agent we ended up using who didn’t quite know our area all that well, used data from the last 9 months (I think) and came up with a number that was pretty much on target for what we were thinking.

We quickly discounted one agent because she came in thinking that we had four mortgages on our property; she either didn’t read the reports on our house correctly or didn’t think about what they said. We refinanced a few times, so in the time we owned the house, we had a few mortgages, but never had more than 1 at a time. Anyone that would have looked at the data would have seen that no one would have let me take out 4 mortgages for about the same amount on our property. Even with the loose lending rules of the recent past, it just wouldn’t have happened. In addition, this agent had the lowest listing price and used comps from the last 90 days which really wasn’t enough data. This agent also said that she and her husband loved doing open houses, despite her telling us that 80%+ of buyers start their searches on the Internet.

Another agent we discounted had never sold a house before. While people have to get their start somewhere, we didn’t want it to be with us.

So that left us with 2 agents, neither of which worked in our area. Both agents gave really good sales pitches, but there were a few things that made us pick our agent. First, while he said that most buyers start their search on the Internet, his firm also worked with a lot of relocations which could have brought a buyer. Also, he and his partner had a very good track record of selling houses in the last year. Lastly, we just felt comfortable with him.

In the end, does it matter which agent we picked? Yes and no. Once a house is put in the multiple listing service, it ends up on various websites and then people find it. We had one open house which almost seemed like a last ditch effort as our agent said that less than 5% of sales start with an open house (the agent for our buyers told them to goto our open house, so maybe it helped). Our agent handled most of the paperwork electronically which is probably the norm these days; it made things very convenient. We also found our agent kept us informed all the time which was very comforting. Since we believed that our house was priced well, was in a good location, and in good condition, finding a buyer was basically a wait and see game. Our agent (and probably most seller’s agents) aren’t really bringing in potential buyers, but guiding the seller through the process.

Luckily, we had an offer within about 30 days. I have no regrets on our choice of agents as we received our asking price for our house and it sold relatively quickly.

[This is the first post in a series of posts that I’ve been saving up until our house sold.]

Almost eight years ago, my wife and I bought the house that we thought would be our last house. The house had all the room we thought we’d need, a large lot, a pool, and was in a good neighborhood with good schools.

After some discussion with my wife about how our plans have changed over the years, we decided at the beginning of the year to sell our house and look for a place that was smaller and a bit closer to the coast. The process began with 2 months of preparation cleaning out our house to get rid of things and store other things (we had plenty of storage). Our house went up for sale around the beginning of March and by the beginning of April, we accepted an offer.

The next step in the process was looking for a house to rent to give us time to scope out the market and find the “perfect” house. The rental house we found is about 1600 square feet. The house we just sold had close to 2700 square feet, so we had (and still have) a lot of “thinning” to do. The more we look at the stuff we have, the more we’re taking a harder look at if we need it. My wife and I both realized that we aren’t the kind of people that need a lot of material things; there are some things that we really like (our tech gadgets) and some sentimental things, but a lot of things we’ve collected over the years just aren’t used and we can’t even remember that we have them.

If we can survive in our rental with a lot less space (I am still determined to get both cars in the garage that is currently filled with an extra couch, a washer and dryer, a refrigerator, and tons of boxes), then I think we’ll be good to buy a house of similar size and eliminate more junk from our lives.

When we’ve mentioned to people that we’re “downsizing” our house, they kind of look at us funny. We’re not that old and downsizing of a house is something that people do as they get older and no longer have kids at home. However, for us, we decided that the timing is right. It is also helping us to realize what is really important in our lives.

Despite my wife warning me to not go shopping today, I decided to leave the house to look for a Logitech h800 wireless headset. I checked Best Buy’s website and saw that they had the headset in stock. (I wanted to get it locally in case I needed to return it.)

After a quick trip to Costco (it wasn’t too bad despite being this time of year) and Target, I headed to Best Buy. Parking was easy and then I went into the store to find the headset. It was a complete zoo, so I started looking for the headset. First I saw headsets in the PC area. They had some Logitech wireless headsets there, but not the h800. So I went to the mobile phone area and there were more headsets, but not the h800. Onto mp3 players to find more headsets, but not the h800.

So, I asked a sales person and he said to check over by the home stereo area as I had said “wireless headphones”. Nope, not there. Someone else suggested gaming. There were headsets, but not the h800. By this time, I was about to lose my mind. I tried to use Best Buy’s mobile website to verify that the store had it, but the Find in Store option kept spinning and didn’t show me results.

I went to one of the cash registers (they have them scattered throughout the store) and asked the guy behind the counter to look it up. He looked it up and the computer said they had 7 of them. He went into the back (I thought I’d never see him again) and when he came back maybe 10 minutes later, he said that they were unloading a truck and that they were probably in the shipment. However, he didn’t stop there and asked someone else who said that they wouldn’t have them listed in the computer unless they were already unloaded. The very helpful guy went with me looking for it. First was gaming to double check, then he said “let’s try wireless mice”. Presto, the headset was next to the wireless mice. I’m not sure I would have been able to find them without help. I profusely thanked the man and went on my way to pay.

So Best Buy has headsets in no less than 6 different locations in the store! I’m not sure that anyone there would have been able to find it on the first try. This was an exercise in frustration and a valuable lesson; shop online, it’s easier and faster!

When I went to walk my dog this evening, I found a present at the end of my driveway.

With neighbors like these, who needs enemies? I did clean it up after I got back, but I find it very rude that some people don’t pick up after their dogs.

(My wife thinks it could be from a coyote, but I don’t think so. We live near a canyon, so it is a possibility.)

As anyone in San Diego knows, last Thursday there was a major power outage that covered the entire county of San Diego. When the power went out, I didn’t think much of it as it was hot and I thought it was just a rolling blackout. I was on my way out the door to pick up flowers for my wife for our 10th wedding anniversary. While not very romantic, I was off to Costco to get the flowers; after all these years, my wife knows where I get flowers and likes them nonetheless. It took me about 45 minutes round trip to make it to Costco; the store, like just about every store was closed. On the way home, I decided to take a shortcut through a parking lot as I didn’t want to deal with another traffic light that was out. On my way through it, I saw people going into Albertsons, so I stopped and went in to see if I could get flowers.

Right inside, I saw people loading up on ice, so I grabbed 2 bags, then decided to grab 2 more. The store ran their registers on a generator, so they were raking in the dough. I paid by credit card and was on my way; I wanted to preserve cash just in case.

When I got home, I started thinking if we were prepared. I dumped the ice in the fridge and managed to save most of the contents. My wife and son arrived home awhile later; it took them almost 2 hours to come home from SeaWorld; normally a 25 minute trip.

It was still quite warm outside and we made the decision that we were going to camp outside since the temperature in our house was too high to be tolerable. With flashlights and candles, we were pretty much set for the night. My wife slapped together a dinner using our supply of canned tuna and some salad fixings.

While the power was only off for about 10 hours (it came back on about 1:45 am), it really got me thinking about a real disaster. The news touted that San Diego was pretty well prepared; however, I think the gridlock shows that we still have a lot to do in order to be prepared. Personally, we weren’t too bad off; we have a gas grill ready for cooking, we have food, a can opener, batteries, flashlights, etc. The only things that I think we need to do better is get on a schedule of restocking supplies such as batteries, water, first aid supplies, and food. We have a pool and chlorine, so water wasn’t going to be an issue. I have bottles of water, but due to them being in plastic, I need to make sure we replenish them.

The one major thing I didn’t have was a portable radio. I used my car’s radio to listen as well as followed @KPBSNews. Cell coverage was spotty as cell sites were pretty much clogged.

So, what have I learned? I’ve ordered a solar powered, hand cranked radio (the reviews on them are so mixed, I just have to take a chance). I’m going to pick up additional bottles of water and have setup a calendar where I’ve started to put a schedule of when things need to be replaced.

Can San Diego survive a major earthquake? I’m not sure. It was kind of scary as I had no idea how long the power would be out; we’re so reliant on power and technology that without it, people kind of go crazy. Maybe this will serve as a wake up call for everyone, including me.

Yesterday, I was interviewed about the spring storm that was going to happen today. I found it pretty humorous that any storm in San Diego especially a spring “storm”, makes the news. Today the “storm” hit and it dumped so much rain that by 4 pm, the ground was just about dry and it was sunny! I went for a run and mistakenly wore a long sleeved shirt; it was far too warm for it even though the spring storm was supposed to bring cold air.

Why does weather in San Diego make news? People in other parts of the country laugh at us when we complain at the weather and the local news just make things worse by reporting ridiculous stories calling what we got a storm.

While I do complain about the weather, I do it jokingly and have used it to gently poke fun at my co-workers in other parts of the country.

Back in January, I posted about being a weather wimp. Today I was contacted by the local CBS affiliate about the entry wanting to know if I’d be interviewed about the big storm coming. I didn’t even know that a storm was coming, but I agreed to be interviewed. We did the interview over Skype as they wanted it for today’s news. Unfortunately, the only piece of the interview that made the news was one quote on their website and a split second shot of my blog. I guess the people that lived on Rainswept Way were more interesting than my rant!