A Post From the Now Landed Gentry

At long, long, long last we are home owners in Houston, Texas. Many times during this process I never thought I'd live to see it, but perseverance has won out in the end. We closed today on a new house in Northgate Country Club north of Houston.

In my last post, more than a month ago now, we'd found three potential houses to buy -- all close to each other on a golf course in a country club. All beautiful, brand new, not over our (expanded) budget, and only 35 minutes by bus to my office. Unfortunately all three were close to the airport. My last comment was: "What to do? What to do?"

Well, the answer was: "Buy one, you idiot."


We negotiated what I think is a pretty good price on a brand new home on the course in Northgate CC. It's a single story patio home: big family room, formal dining room, study, breakfast area, beautiful open-plan kitchen, large master bedroom with huge bath and even huge-er walk-in closet, two guest bedrooms each with private bath, covered patio, backyard big enough for a pool. It has tile floors throughout except for shag carpet in the bedrooms and hardwood floor in the study. It has a two-and-a-half car garage; the 'half' is for my golf cart. The clubhouse is a mile away with its restaurant, swimming pool and tennis courts. The park-and-ride for the bus into town is about 10 minutes and the bus ride itself about another 35. Walmart, Home Depot, Kroger, and Walgreen's are just down the street.

Our plan for the rest of the week is: refrigerator delivered tomorrow (Tuesday) plus we do some cleaning and go buy a washer and a dryer; household goods delivered on Wednesday -- hopefully without mold after being in a container for four months; clean the apartment and move out on Thursday; get TV, cable, and Internet hooked up on Thursday; play golf on Friday!

A picture is worth 1000 words. Here's a link to a FaceBook album that shows what we've gotten ourselves into: Our New House

Assuming we get Internet access established quickly, I promise to start posting to this blog more regularly again. I quit because frankly, I figured you were as tired hearing about our house hunting problems as I was tired writing about them. Also, my ever superstitious wife claimed that I was jinxing us by letting anyone know what we were doing. I hate to feed her paranoia, but it looks like she was right!

News from the front

The war continues between me and the Houston housing market, but even in the mud and noise of war, a flower blooms.

We're still battling to find a house to buy or rent. You'll recall from the last blog that we'd found a house only to discover that a petroleum pipeline ran near the house. THAT turned out not to be the problem; the problem was that the builder had operated under more than one company name in the last several years, had been to court and lost concerning shoddy workmanship, and was in some financial straights. Cross another house off our list.

We decided to punt and find something to rent: a townhouse close to work maybe. We enlisted another agent who specializes in rentals. We toured maybe ten places and found two that fit the bill. After debating over night we called the agent to pull the trigger on one. She told us that both had been rented -- one for more than its asking price. Two things are at work here: the refugees from Hurricane Ike all need to rent places until their houses are rebuilt and people whose houses are foreclosed all need to rent somewhere to live. The Houston rental market, particularly for upscale places in nice parts of town, has sky rocketed.

So, we go back to realtor #1 telling her to boost the ceiling price we're willing to pay and to show us houses built after 2003. She finds us three: in a country club, on a golf course, beautiful layout, brand new, and not over budget ... and directly under the landing pattern for Bush Intercontinental Airport. The planes come over the house at about 3000-feet. The noise is perhaps not as bad as we experienced in UK. The people we talked with who live there say, "Oh, yeah. The airplanes. What ever." We love the houses, love the location (the country club has the right feel, isn't expensive, has 27-hole golf course), it's only 35 minutes from work.

What to do, what to do?

The bright spots are more like candles in a cave, but we're taking our happiness where we can:

I passed my Texas driving test.

Wife has a new iPhone ... which I should say is really cool and fun and over priced and carries a hefty monthly fee. Did I mention it's really cool?

We're going to get a refund on our sofa that the moving company lost ... when I moved TO the UK seven years ago.

Good Buddy Bruce was here on his way back from Venzeuela with news that he's NOT retiring because he's been promoted to a great new job.

Work is good and I'm starting to find direction there. No promotion in sight or hearing, but, hey, in these times -- a job's a job.

My mom's doing well and having her 88th (I think) birthday ... or maybe she already had it ... I can never remember whether it's Oct 13 or Oct 17.

My daughter's and her husband are doing well. She teaching and acting.

And ... oh, darn ... that's it.

Will I NEVER learn?

At last post we'd just backed out of a contract for a house we loved in Sugar Land, Texas. We'd also just started looking at houses north of the city and I'd said we'd found "quite a few possibles".

The part I left out was that one of the possibles was an absolutely gorgeous custom built home on a lake in the Senterra subdivision of Spring, Texas. It's unfinished, but even in that state it's impressive:




o Sits on a natural, not canal-like, lake.
o Has 3300 sq ft of floor space
o Three bedrooms including a master that looks out on the lake.



o Study with wood wainscoting (I think that's what you call it) and a computer nook just off of it. Full bath too so it could be a third guest room.


o Beautiful kitchen that opens onto the family room, breakfast area, and views of the lake.


o Formal living room that you see directly across the foyer as you walk in and a view of the lake through the picture window.
o Huge diningroom with butler's pantry.

o Two covered patios looking out on the lake with access from family room and master bedroom.
o Three car garage (no more wondering where to put my windsurfing equipment).
o Table for folding clothes and a sink in the utility room.
o Corner lot with a second lake (retainment pond actually) across the street.
o The not-yet-completed community swimming pool is across the lake.
o There's a public golf course within 15 minute drive.
o AND it's at least $200,000 more than we were planning on spending.
o AND it's a 55 minute commute to my office ... on good days.

We drove out there on Sunday. We walked through it again, and frankly just fell completely in love with it. We asked ourselves, "Why are we not just taking this? It's the perfect house for us and who cares how much it costs if we've got the money? Why are we even debating this?" We walked around the lake and saw a few minnows swimming plus signs people have been fishing. We had mild concerns about where the lake's outlet is; how does it keep from flooding the houses? But still. I could see taking this house and never moving again.

Then Lara sees a pipe sticking up out of the ground just on the property line: "Warning - Petroleum Product Pipeline -- call 1-888-555-You're-F-ked to report explosions, fires and other destruction. Sorry about that." Well, I'm kidding about what the sign said, but not about there being a 10 inch gasoline pipeline running next to the property. It carries as much as 1500 barrels (60,000 gallons!) of gasoline an hour and can run at 500 psi. It was laid in 1948.

I can hear god in his arm chair saying, "I TOLD you not to buy a house. Why won't you listen?"

Then why does he keep putting houses we like in our way and then jerking them out from under us.

Truthfully, we like it so much, we may buy it anyway.

Today though, we're off to look at townhouses to rent ... again. Maybe we'll find something we love that we don't have to buy.

Reason for no posts ...

Never never never say things are going well or that you've been lucky like I did in my previous post.

On 18 September we'd just returned from a week in San Antonio waiting out Hurricane Ike. Our new house was virtually undamaged. We were to have the final inspection with the builder on Friday and hoped to close on the following Monday.

We had our final inspection on Friday. It went relatively well. Some things undone, because of the storm mostly, and Wife found a few dozen more items that needed touch up paint, but generally we were pleased.

But, while we were having the inspections, three business jet aircraft flew directly over our house. I would conservatively guess they were at 500-feet -- close enough to see the pilots. They flew directly at our family room windows then proceeded to land at Sugar Land Regional airport, which is 1-2 miles away.

I was moderately freaked out; Wife was solidly freaked out. We came home and the first thing I did was to start an online search of Sugar Land Regional Airport. I found that the airport services "more than 7200 aircraft a month" and that it "Handles small, private planes to the largest corporate aircraft, such as the Boeing 737 BBJ." Further digging revealed that in August 2008 they handled 6,961 takeoffs or landings. Digging into yet another site I discover that at peak times the airport can have as many as 10 operations per hour. So much for "it's just a little regional airport for private pilots".

We go out to the house on Saturday at about the time we expected the most take offs and landings. No jets came over head, but we realize that the house is right in the gun barrel of the airport runway. We see three jets taking off in the opposite direction away from us. We have more than a dozen propeller driven planes take off toward the house, but turn left before reaching us. We're still freaked.

We sweat things out on Sunday and on Monday, I call our realtor and the sales agent calling off the deal ... and watching our earnest money disappear ... and the deposits on the utilities. And probably the money for inspections, etc etc.

We're dispondent.

On Tuesday I write to our housing company telling them what happened and asking to extend the lease on our corporate apartment. We're supposed to check out on Wednesday. I start receiving emails saying, "No can do." Because of people needing housing from Ike, all apartments are booked. I swallow hard and start searching for hotels. The nearest one I can find is all the way back in San Antonio -- three hours away.

Now I'm suicidal.

The first ray of sunshine shows up late Tuesday afternoon. The head of Oakwood Apartments for Houston calls me himself saying that he's pulled all the strings and called in his chips and we can stay for 30 more days. Being the manly man I am, I cry on the phone.

We start looking for houses to rent -- figuring that god is trying to tell us "Don't buy a house right now. Weren't you paying attention when I put a landfill next to the first one you wanted, sent a hurricane, and now put this house in the glide path? Go rent." But, he's not helping us: everything we see to rent in Houston is crap. The depression grows.

So today, we're back looking for new houses. We visited 16 houses today north of the city. We found quite a few possibles. We're organizing our thoughts, and 700 pictures that Wife took today, and we'll try to make another decision.

Sorry for not writing more. It's been a long 10 days.

I'd Rather Be Lucky Than Good

This has been a very good day.

We left our friends' house in San Antonio about 8:30am this morning to start our 3-hour-plus drive back to Houston area. We made a pitstop for gasoline and a McDonald's breakfast after putting an hour and a half of driving behind us. We drove toward Houston in very light traffic. We didn't see any damage at all until we got quite close to Houston. Then we started to see torn up and torn down billboards, trees leaning at funny angles, etc.

We turned off I-10 and headed south towards our new house. The damage became more severe as we drove. Soon we were seeing uprooted trees, signs completely blown down, blue tarps thrown across a few roofs. As we got nearer our house we really began to worry. The New Territory Blvd leading to our subdivision was a mass of broken limbs and downed trees. It looked like the city had planted red bud trees, or something similar, in the center divide of the road. Those trees hadn't stood up well to the storm at all. The city had done a good job of getting the downed trees cleared, however. The roads were open, stop lights working, shopping centers full, no long lines at gasoline stations.

We rounded into our subdivision and couldn't see damage on any of the houses. We pulled up in front of ours and found it open. We could see a few shingles pulled up, but all in all no damage to speak of. A couple of the small trees planted in front were pretty much stripped of leaves. I found a couple shingles laying in our back yard. A nest of fire ants had tried to get above the high tide line by building a nest up into our brick work. I couldn't detect any damage inside the house at all. The electricity was on, air conditioning working. While we were prowling around, some workers came to resurface part of our fake-granite countertops -- an item we'd noted in our earlier walk-thru. To say that we were relieved was an understatement.

We drove to our builder/agent's office. He said that his electricity was still out at his house a few blocks away, but that electricity in his office had never gone out. He said that they'd already noted the roof damage and had people on the way out to repair it as we spoke. He felt he would have all the required work done from our walk-thru, including re-painting the media room, by Friday. I was amazed.

He also shared that our lender hadn't received some paperwork from me and that my insurance company hadn't provided proof of coverage yet. I worked with Eric and got the lender one of the items that I owed her. I knew how to get her the other information, assuming my computer worked back at our apartment. So, we decided there wasn't much more we could do, and started to drive into Houston itself to check on our apartment. It was now about 3:00pm.

Pessimistic me was expecting (a) a tree through the window leading to, (b) significant water damage, (c) a refrigerator that would have to be thrown out because of the rotting food inside, and (d) looting that would've seen everything we left behind now sitting in someone else's house.

I was totally wrong.

As we got closer to downtown the damage became even more prevalent. Windows knocked out, large bill boards blown over -- bent over, actually. We could see lots and lots of windows blown out of the high rises downtown. It didn't appear that my building was too badly hit. As we turned off the expressway onto the side street leading to our apartment, there was lots of tree damage and several had fallen into people's houses. We pulled up outside our apartment complex and saw a tree leaning out toward the street. We held our breath.

We walked through the hallway to our apartment and could see signs of water having been standing there. We screwed up our courage and opened the front door. The air conditioning was running. We flipped the switch and the lights came on. A note slipped under the door told us that they'd emptied all perishible items from our frige and freezer. No broken windows. No water damage at all. The TVs worked. Even the broadband access was running happily along. All our possessions were right where we'd left them.

All your, and our, prayers were answered today. Thank you all for thinking good thoughts for us.

To celebrate we went to our favorite cajun place about 4:30. A bottle of wine, gumbo, crawfish bisque, salmon-and-shrimp garden salad, and "Mama's crab and shrimp spaghetti" cures a lot of ills.

We came back to the apartment. Wife wrote emails to her boys. I crashed out on the couch. About 9am I displaced her from the computer and got busy getting things moving again to buy the house.

It looks like we'll try to close on Monday 22 September. Original plan had been Friday 19 September. We need to get the insurance thing settled. My insurance agent's office is still without power, so I'll work Plan B on that tomorrow. I handled the one bit of outstanding info that the lender wanted from me tonight. We have to have a final walk-thru on Friday to make sure the builder has fixed all the things we want fixed. The lender is ordering a second appraisal to verify there's not been any serious storm damage. I have to get money from the credit union, assuming it is up and running normally; otherwise, I'll have to invent a Plan B for that.

I've gotten our household furniture back on the road toward us ... or at least I've written emails asking the companies involved to get the process restarted. (We heard from our movers that their warehouse in Houston had suffered no damage, so our UK household goods should be OK.) Next steps are to get telephone, TV, broadband, and security set up at the new house. I need to order a refrigerator, washer, and drier for delivery next week. The list is never ending -- but at least it's a positive list, and not the one I was expecting to be doing tonight.

It's been a very good day.

Heading Toward Houston Tomorrow

We plan to drive to Houston tomorrow morning. We called the apartment this afternoon and received our answering machine. That must mean that the electricity is on at the apartment ... and that looters have at least not stolen the answering machine.

We've been in contact with our builder and our agent. The builder says the new house incurred no damage except for some fencing down and some shrubbery destroyed. He also says that the electricity is still out at the new house. Everyone, except me, seems to think we can close on Friday as planned. I'm not optimistic about that. I want the inspector to come back out at least to look at the roof and to make sure no water has entered the attic, etc. I don't think we can make that happen by Friday.

Also it appears that my financial advisor didn't get my email directing her to get funds made available. I called her today and got that process started. One more notch in my ulcer.

We moved out of the Hyatt on Monday and spent last night and will spend tonight with our friends Gridley and Terry at their house in San Antonio. We're going to leave as early as practical tomorrow morning and hopefully will be at the new house in late morning. Our builder is working at the subdivision tomorrow and will let us into the house. We'll see if we see anything horrible for ourselves and start making plans from there. After that we'll go to our apartment and at least empty the now undoubtedly disgusting fridge. If the place is livable, we'll stay there. We have plenty of bottled water and some food with us. I don't expect that we'll have telephone or internet so bear with us for a while on that front.

The Chevron office in Houston is closed for general business until Monday. It is open for mission critical people, which doesn't include me ... he says thankfully.

So that's it. Wish us luck.

Sunday Morning In San Antonio

We're struggling to get going after quite a lazy day yesterday. We got up late on Saturday and tried to hit Denny's near-by for breakfast.

On the way out of the hotel we arranged to stay Sunday night for Monday check-out. We can't get a reservation after that here so we'll need to find other accommodations somehow.

At Denny's the 30 minute wait seemed too much. We wandered RiverWalk drinking a bloody mary and a strawberry margarita ... well, it was 11:30 by then, after all. We had a nice fight over where to eat then decided to eat next to the river at Landry's Seafood. It turned out to be a good choice. Wife had redfish with scallops and I had a monster seafood salad. A nice bottle of Buena Vista chardonnay was perfect with it.

We went back to hotel and just flaked out for the next several hours -- watched a stupid movie or two. The housekeepers came about 4pm and we went downstairs for a drink in the bar and nibbled some snacks. We went back up to the room and that was it for the night. We never even made it out for dinner.

So now it's Sunday morning. We're not getting much news about Houston, but it doesn't look good. It doesn't appear that they've gotten much if any of the power restored. I've not received any news on how Chevron's building fared. I just got a text message from a work colleague saying, "Stay where you are. Power out. Cell phones spotty. Trees down everywhere."

Looks like we'll be at Hotel Gridley (i.e., our friends' house) tomorrow night, if he'll have us.

Still OK here in San Antonio

We had no wind and no rain in San Antonio over night. We drove to our friends Gridley and Terry's house about 25 minutes from our hotel downtown. Our other friends DW and Pat with their daughter Debbie and their four dogs had driven two hours up from Padre Island so we had a Knox reunion. Terry made great spaghetti and even greater brownies. We shared old times and then we drove back to the hotel about 11pm.

Houston doesn't look good and if they'll give us a room at the hotel for tomorrow night we'll probably stay here one more night at least -- planning to drive back to Houston on Monday. If we can't get a room, we may crash at Gridley and Terry's.

Not much more to say about all this. I'm glad we left Houston. I'm too old to deal with the mess.

One thought occurred to me: our furniture is sitting in a shipping container -- somewhere in the Port of Houston. Or at least that's where it was supposed to be. I hope it's not floating away somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico! Or hasn't had water blown into the container.

I'm expecting that our rented place in Houston has water in it -- just from the force of the wind blowing water in through the cracks. I'd duct taped the sliding glass door to try to seal that a bit, but I've got not much hope that it did a lot of good. Good news is that, so far, we've not seen any evidence of flooding in our area of downtown.

How did our new house do? I have no idea. I suspect that water blew in and that we at least have some damage. It's supposed to be very water tight, but with winds at 100mph, water's going to find a way in.

Smart move for the day yesterday: I filled up the gas tank. Gasoline prices are going to be up over $5.00 per gallon until they figure out what's happened to the refineries.

We're off to breakfast.

San Antonio - Waiting for the Storm

We arrived safely in San Antonio after a 4-1/2 hour drive from Houston. Traffic was bad for more than half the trip. I'd filled the tank with gasoline the night before so we cruised on in without having to worry about the long lines for gas. We stopped at McDonald's for a milk shake - a reward for all our "suffering". The sat-nav brought us right to the hotel. It's a Grand Hyatt right downtown in San Antonio, on their "Riverwalk". It's brand new and very very nice.

Last night we walked the Riverwalk and found a Mexican restaurant right on the water. The food was pretty poor, but the margaritas were cold and we danced a dance to the mariachi band.

We called our Knox buddies, Mark (Gridley) and Terry, who live in San Antonio. Grid was at a high school football game, moved to Thursday instead of Friday because of the storm. Grid's an assistant high school principal, not a football addict -- that's why he was at the game.

Our other buddy DW and his wife Pat are in the same boat we are. They just moved to Padre Island near Corpus Christi and are living right on the beach. They're debating about driving up this way too. We'll find out whether they're coming later today. They're only expecting tropical storm conditions down there, but the storm surge could still be pretty bad.

We got a good night's sleep and are heading out for a VERY late breakfast. We're meeting Grid and Ter tonight for dinner.

All's ok. Including, obviously, that I figured out the hotel Internet.

Bugging out ...

Us chickens is bugging out ...

Looks like the storm is coming to Houston and we can't see any reason to stay and welcome it.

I've booked reservations through Saturday night, checkout Sunday, at the Grand Hyatt San Antonio. The telephone number appears to be 1 210 224 1234, if you need to catch us there. I have my mobile with me too.

It's about a 3 hour drive under normal conditions from Houston to San Antonio. They're outside the storm watch area because it looks like Ike is heading north after making landfall near Galveston.

They're evacuating the coastal areas. Houston (Harris County) residents are being told to "shelter in place" and to lay in supplies of food and water to last five days. People who stay can expect electricity to be out. I'm thinking, "No thanks." We had water in the hallway outside our apartment after just a thunderstorm. I've got no desire to sit in this cramped little place with no airconditioning for four days, so we're loading the car and heading out in a couple hours.

I'm expecting to have internet access from the hotel, so we'll make another post here after we arrive and get settled.

Wish us luck.

Of Bedrooms and Rate Cuts

On Sunday I admit it: I was lazy and worn out. Wife finally pushed me out the door about 2pm. We drove to Gallery Furniture just north of us on I-45. HUGE furniture store. Sales people waiting vulture-like as we enter the store. "Irene" latches onto us and leads us to five separate areas with bedroom sets. We spend probably three hours wandering back and forth finally narrowing things down to five different sets that are "possibles". Good prices ... better than at Fingers the day before ... maybe not the highest quality furniture, but pretty good.

We finally burn out without making a decision and drive to another store we'd seen on the way to Gallery -- Star Furniture Outlet or something like that. Another big store but not filled with people like the other. Immediately I don't like that there are no prices listed. You have to have a salesperson run off and come back to you with a price when you want something. We wandered, but couldn't get enthusiastic about anything.

We drove to Kroger near the apartment, but decided we were too hungry to shop. We hit Gulf Coast Kitchen for a glass of Kendall-Jackson chardonnay, shrimp-crab quesadillas, smoked-corn-and-crab chowder, and crawfish etouffee. We're becoming regulars at this place. Excellent food if a tad pricey.

Suitably fuelled we hit Kroger for $200 worth of groceries. Everyone had the same idea and the store was pretty jammed. Too tired to cook, it was sandwiches for dinner and then some TV before bed.

Monday, yesterday, was a day of days. Hurricane Ike is headed right at Houston it seems. My insurance agent calls to verify we're closing on 19 September because she wants to get policy in the system before storm arrives. Evidently (and logically) State Farm shuts down order taking right in front of a storm ... sort of like not selling health insurance to someone who's already sick, I guess.

Then I receive a call from one of our Company-preferred lenders -- Citibank. They're offering 5.500% 30-year fixed mortgage. I'm sitting on an offer from another lender -- Wells Fargo -- for 5.875%. I decide I should give them a shot and write to my contact there. While I'm waiting for his reply, I receive another call from Citibank: rate is now 5.375% with a "float" -- meaning I get a one time option to take a lower rate if that happens between now and our close date. Plus I don't have to put taxes or insurance into escrow -- so I earn interest on that money instead of someone else earning it. I write to WF and receive a quick reply, "Can't match that." I call Citibank and say, "Sign me up." Citibank says, "Rates are back to 5.5% already, but I locked you at the lower rate so you are good to go." How cool is THAT?

What's it mean? A difference of about $400 per month in house payments -- about $4500per year savings. More than $120,000 total savings over the course of a 30 year loan. Zowie. Plus I've got to feel that with rates that low, more people will get back in the market and we should see house prices go up from here.

I NEVER time anything correctly. I'm sure the other shoe will fall and I'll find out that this really IS too good to be true, but, until then, I'm basking in my glory.

Sprinkler systems, termites, bedroom sets and other potential disasters

Daily blog posts seem to be a thing of the past for me. I'll give you a partial weekend update. This weekend was Inspection Weekend. It went well. It was also Refrigerator-Washer-Drier-Bedroom-Set weekend and that went less well, but not a disaster. All that effort did grind me down to a nubbin though. When does this get to be over? I'd like to play golf again before I die.

We were out at the new house on Saturday morning: Wife driving; me navigating. I failed my end of the bargain and we were 20 minutes late getting to the house. Our ever(normally)-trustworthy sat-nav really has trouble in area around our new house. She thinks roads are there that are not, thinks roads aren't there that are --- like our street. Eventually I found the house though ... after forcing Wife's hands to unclamp from the steering wheel and taking control myself.

Inspector Mike from MasterCraft and his daughter-side-kick Leslie were hard at work. They seemed pretty thorough with usual disclaimer that they could only test the things they could see and didn't take anything apart to look under the covers. Here's the short list of items ... or my interpretation of same:

One of hot water heater vents isn't seated properly on roof. (Surprise: we have two hot water heaters.)

Damaged shingles and shingles separated in front. (Wife caught the latter item.)

Gap in roof flashing at front.

Gas flame out of log starter in fire place is HUGE. He advises caution. (I saw it. He's not kidding. When he cranked it open you could feel the heat halfway across the room. You could cook a steer over the flame and heat the whole house ... or burn it all down.)

Compressed insulation in the attic in one place.

Attic stairs not properly installed.

Cover on electrical receptical on patio is upside-down.

Grounding wire to gas pipe is connected to insulation, not to pipe itself. (What COULD the installer have been thinking?)

No heating or cooling in downstairs half bath or in master bedroom toilet. (OK, will keep people from spending too much time there.)

MAJOR ITEM: Walls on both sides of upstairs bathroom have been cut into and not completely repaired. They even left a gaping hole in one wall. We can't figure out what was going on there, but it doesn't look good.

Dishwasher door rubs on cabinet. Ho-hum.

Gas cooktop appears set for grill mode, but has burners instead. Fan comes on when you light the burner. Ho-hum.

Cover for drier vent isn't firmly attached. (Need that fixed to keep the birds out.)

Looks like a leak in the sprinkler system in backyard. Some sprinkler heads not working properly.

Termite (Wood-Destroying-Insect) Inspector Chaz came an hour or so later. He did his thing and said, "Only seventh time in my career I didn't find one thing to complain about. No branches touching house, no fences butting against walls, no foliage too high, no dirt mounded too close to foundation. You're good to go."

Then Alarm-System Melanie shows from Brinks Security. She checks all the security contacts and declares system working. She says we have one of the coolest touch panels going at the back (garage) door. It will not only do all the security stuff, it will answer your telephone and tell you how many voicemails you have when you walk in the door. It'll turn your lights on and off while you're gone to make people think you're home. It'll greet you when you walk in the door. How cool is that? Of course, I'll foul it up and have police called every time I go in or out, but they'll get used to it. Fee (if we go with Brinks): $30/month.

Cleaners show up. That was unexpected. A small army descend into the house, start work, then decide we're in their way and all leave again -- the leader saying, "I'll be back." with Mexican not Austrian accent.

My big concern is the cabling. It's not obvious to me that they've yet run all the cabling for telephones, internet, cable TV, etc. I'm going to bug builder about that.

Wife has done her own inspection. I conservatively estimate 100 items on board. Everything from paint dings to rotting fence slats. I pitty the builder, but Wife's got no remorse and I'll just stand and look stern.

We finally wear out (actually I wear out) and head out. As we're leaving the cleaners show up. (Were they waiting down the street for us to leave?)

We decide to drive around the area. We're both hungry by now. We don't find suitable place to eat, but do discover some shopping centers. As we near the main expressway for the area we find a big mall with Walmart (what else?), Circuit City, Toys R Us, PetSmart(PetsMart?) and Fingers Furniture.

We also find, please don't puke, International House of Pancakes. Strange as it may seem breakfast sounds good at about 3pm. Wife's never eaten at IHOP; I don't imagine a good outcome. I'm happily surprised. Wife says, "I'm hungry." And then proceeds to eat, I kid you not, a sirlion steak, three poached eggs, two pancakes, a load of hash browns, and a strawberry milkshake. Hungry? Sweet jeeminy. Where did that little girl put all that food?

We discover that Fingers is going out of business and having a big sale. We find a couple bedroom sets we like. Unfortunately neither of us like the same ones. We mark them for "look again later" -- gambling they'll still be there.

We hit Circuit City for prices on new TVs: you can spend how ever much is in you pocket. I also discover that they have a service ($100) in which they'll come to your house, survey the situation, and make recommendations on how to handle your audio and video needs. If you buy more than $400 from Circuit City, they'll apply the cost of the survey to the purchase. I may have to do that because I don't know jack about the current state of audio/video.

We go home and I'm past ready.

That's Saturday. Sunday is fodder for another post.

A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off Drinking From a Firehose

I missed a day or two of posts. Sorry. Here's why:


Monday

• Wife decides she doesn't like the house we bought.

Tuesday

• I ignore Monday's problem.


• Tried to resolve address problem with Company credit card in UK. Failed.


• Obtained cashiers' check from credit union to cover earnest money for house.


• Wrote to financial advisor asking her to arrange for handling downpayment


• Visited Company fitness center and decided for $30 per month, I'll join. Did that online 'paperwork'.


• Tried to sign up for Company's automated expense report processing. Couldn't because I had no copy of a check from the credit union with me. Grrr.


• Applied for and received permission for Company-subsidized covered parking space in near-by building. It'll be about 1/2 the cost of the $5 per day I've been paying up to now.


• Sent expense account form to UK HR to get reimbursed for money we spent for our flights from UK to here


• Drove to sales agent's office in our new subdivision to deliver earnest money and to sign preliminary paperwork. Met our realtor Marla there. Nothing scary showed up in the paperwork. Found that the house has built-in pest control system. Found that they're in the process of constructing a pool and fitness center for subdivision residents less than 5 minute drive from the house. Found that the builder has a website that shows our house from the time they started laying our slab through construction. Only disconcerting part: Our yearly home owners' fee is $650; the home owners association takes 1-point-something percent of our selling price when we eventually sell the house. Oh, well.


• Drove home and made telephone calls to three Company-approved lenders. Decided on Wells Fargo when they showed up with best rate (5.875% on 30 year fixed when I put property taxes into escrow.) Citibank a close second. GMAC a distant third because they seemed disorganized on the phone.


• Called State Farm insurance agent from whom I'd purchased car and renters' insurance and asked her for quote on new house.


• Arranged Simple Power as electricity provider for new house based on comparison website for electric providers in Texas. Only locked myself in for six months, so if I've goofed, it's not forever.


• Made Campbells vegetable beef soup for dinner. Threw in some left over veggies too. Yummy. Can't get it in UK.
  
• Lasted about 5 minutes on the couch in front of TV before falling asleep.

Wednesday

• Picked up parking badge.


• Brought check from home and submitted application for automated expense reporting. Now I can request reimbursement for Company mobile phone.


• Sent estimated tax payment to Internal Revenue


• UK HR agreed to reimburse for airfare, but whined that it should have been handled by US HR.


• State Farm calls back and emails insurance info for new house: ~$1300 per year. Seems OK to me.


• Booked business meeting for next Tuesday. Changed it to Monday at vendors' request. Changed it back to Tuesday when vendor says he made a mistake.


• Gave additional info to Wells Fargo to get mortgage process officially kicked off. Citibank calls back and wants back in the game. I say, "Nope, you had your chance."


• Talked with Company IT Procurement in California. I've apparently broken someone's rice bowl and I need to glue it back together. Nice guy though and the end result is going to be good, I think.


• Received notification that our sea shipment has cleared customs! I arrange delivery on Tuesday 23 September ... giving us time to have house cleaned after we close on 19th.


• More talks with our own Procurement people to make sure I've not done anything incorrect with them like I did with IT Procurement. I don't think I have and we're all going to teleconference next week to start pulling on the same end of the rope.


• Toyota dealership called to let me know they are mailing our license plates to us.


• Went to gym for first time in three months. Fifteen minutes on rowing machine; 15 minutes on 'stepper'; 15 minutes cooling down walking on treadmill. Thought I was going to die.


• Drove home then walked to "Fish" restaurant near our house. Poor Wife still has terrible stomach upset from the antibiotics she's been taking for her toothache. Tries to eat, but nothing tastes right, and then she's sick again anyway. Fortunately, last day of pills is tomorrow.


• Wife allows that maybe the house will be OK afterall.

Other than that, not much going on. Sorry I've not posted more often.

Done and dusted - or at least half-way there

We bought a house today. Well, at least made a commitment on one. After a long and tedious battle in trying to decide between Erik's house and Vicki's house. We finally landed on Erik's. We made an offer, he made a counter offer, and we took it. And I, for one, am just thrilled. We'll work out details starting on Tuesday or Wednesday next week, depending on what Hurricane Gustav does. We have to go through all the formalities, including inspections, arranging the loan etc., but for all intents and purposes, we're home owners. It's thrilling. It's been a long, long time since I've owned a house. I didn't realize how much it meant to me until we finally said, "Go" on this one. I'm very, very happy.

For those of you that want to dig deeper, I put pictures and captions on FaceBook. The pictures were taken on two different days: the first when we viewed the property on our own with the sales agent and the second when we viewed the property "open house" with our realtor, Marla, yesterday. You can tell the difference between the two days because they dressed up the house with plants and do-dads for the open house.

For those that want the gory details, read on:

We ended up picking this house just because it is so darn pretty inside. We loved "Vicki's" model home too, but it had a lot of hassles and we just ran out of energy to deal with them. Vicki came down a lot in price -- $6000 lower than Erik's offer -- but she couldn't tell us whether we could move in right away, plus the whole upstairs would need repainting, plus it was a model and had some wear in it, plus we had the problem of what to do with the furniture -- some of which we liked, but much of which we didn't, and finally we couldn't figure out how to convert one room into somewhere to practice our dancing. We loved the lake access, the landscaping, the nearness to the community pool. In the end though the problems out-weighed the benefits.

The new house is in Telfair subdivision. That's a newly opened tract of land just opened in Sugar Land, Texas. We're about 23 miles from downtown Houston on Route 59. That'll be 30 minutes at the best of times and 50 minutes during commute ... or so we think. The house is built by David Weekly Homes and they tout how "green" they are.

The subdivision has lakes in it, and you can kayak and canoe on them. No one could tell me if there's any fish, but there's a lake at the end of the street, and you can bet I'll give it a try.

I'm very, very happy, and thanks to Robert Mondavi, more than a little drunk tonight.

Tomorrow the real fun begins

First, thanks to those of you that commented on yesterday's post about the model home in Chelsea Harbour. As my daddy used to say, "If it seems too good to be true, it usually is." Well, the truth came out today. Read on ...

Wife went to bed last night with terrible stomach cramps and various other forms of gastric distress. She'd been to the dentist who'd prescribed antibiotics to knock out the tooth infection it seemed she had. Her body doesn't seem to like the pills at all. She was miserable last night, and not good this morning. She pushed herself out the door with me at 11AM for a full day of house hunting. Today was 1/2 day for revisits and 1/2 day for new houses -- eight (8) in total.

We drove northwest to Cypress to look at our favorite house in the Sydney Harbour subdivision. We'd nicknamed it the Karina because that's the name of its floor plan. This is the house we like the best, but it is also the most expensive and has the most difficult commute. A re-visit didn't change our feelings about it.

Our realtor told us that the "cheapie" red brick house in Jersey Village that I'd been sort of holding out for, was now under contract and off the table. One less house to look at and consider. So be it.

From there it was a 45 minute drive south then west to a house we'd peeked into, but not entered. We were calling it the "Wood Floor House" because we'd seen a sign through the window "Take off your shoes. New hardwood and carpeting." Well, yes, it had that, but the bedrooms were tiny; they'd dismantled the kitchen sink and range and not connected them. Generally, it just seemed a little out of sync.

From there we drove to the house next door to the model home (we call it "Vicki's House" in honor of the agent) in Chelsea Harbour that we thought we could get with furniture. We thought there was an outside chance we'd like it better than the model. It was lots bigger -- the biggest we'd actively considered actually at more than 3800 sq ft. Inside, it was frankly 'buggy'. Lots of dead little critters in all the corners. Once again, we just didn't love it.

At this point the truth about the model next door came out. We'd wondered why our realtor hadn't taken us through it. When I asked she said, "The agent told me that you couldn't move in for two months. You'd buy it then lease it back to them for two months." Now that's NOT what we thought we heard from the agent. Well, we're right next door so I go over and ask her. She says, "That's right. We'd lease it back from you for $2500 per month. But, if you really need to move in now, I'll talk with my supervisor about it." Also, as we've thought more clearly about it, do we really want all that cheap furniture that isn't our taste? Sure, sure, we could sell it piecemeal on eBay, make some money and buy our own stuff over time. That's still an option.

From there we drove to Telfair subdivision. Wife and I had visited and seen a house we liked quite well. We took to calling it Erik's house. Its claim to fame is that frankly it's beautiful inside, has a big (comparatively) back yard, and the Telfair subdivision is the closest commute we've been able to find.


The subdivision sits within five minutes of a main artery (Rte 59). You jump on that and it takes you straight downtown. Vicki's house requires maybe 15 minutes of driving just to get to the expressway. It's our classic dilemma of trading of commute time for other things.

Other builders in Telfair also had houses that we thought might fit our ticket. With our realtor's help, we saw three of these. One was just a couple doors down the street from Erik's house. Erik's house was open again. When we walked in, it confirmed our initial thoughts. Our realtor said, "Wow, impressive."

So negotiations start tomorrow. We're going to get the best price we can from the builder for Erik's house. Their "Sale" ends tomorrow. He better throw up some discounts. We'll also talk with our realtor about how to negotiate for Vicki's house. That's much more complicated. It's not just price and fixing what's broken; it's move in date, amount of lease back if any, handling of the furniture, and probably other things I've not thought of yet.

So tomorrow the fun starts ... finally.

Like manna from heaven

OK, I know you're tired of hearing how tired I am of house hunting, but every once in a while ...

We looked at a townhouse to rent today: would have been nice, but filthy dirty inside, as predicted given its price.

We looked at a house to rent today: almost OK, except that the standing water in front apparently really is a problem because as we walk to the front door we see a bright orange citation sticker from the City of Houston saying the house is out of compliance -- mechanical failure. Don't want to deal with either of the two issues. Home for lunch. Fade out.

Fade in -- 40 minute drive to Sugar Land southwest of Houston. Ever faithful Lisa-the-Sat-Nav claims she knows where the new subdivision is that we're trying to find. Two different people at work independently recommended it. At one point Lisa insists there is a road to my left and that I get off on it. Except there is no such road. After much driving in circles and calling Lisa some pretty unflattering things, and in her case anatomically impossible, we punch in another house and let her take us there.

It turns out we're back at the same subdivision (Chelsea Harbour) in which we found "the house with the pumping station" and "the house with the prison". We'll never mind, they're on the total other side of the area, and this house looks good. Near the entrance to the subdivision, but not too near. Near the swimming pool, but not too near. On the 'lake', that allows boating and supposedly has fish in it. We prowl around the outside of the house, peaking in windows.

I notice the house next door is the model home for David Weekley Homes, and it's open. I go inside calling for the sales person. No one home, but a sign says, "Smile, you're on closed circuit television." So, I call Wife in and we proceed to prowl around. It, like all models, is decked out. Extra landscaping. And tons of other little touches. The sales agent, Vicki, shows up, and the bomb shells start falling. Yes, the house is available right now. She's asking $375,000, but will discuss other prices. And, everything in the house except the electronics like television, closed circuit video, etc. is being sold with the house. I ask, "You mean the furniture. Certainly not the accessories like pictures, tableware, etc." Answer, "No, everything stays." Wholly kow.

We re-evaluate the whole shooting match. This means, we could just buy some kingsized sheets and move in. No drapes, no dining room furniture, no bedroom furniture for three extra bedrooms. This is a horse of a completely different color.

I slapped the photos out on FaceBook. Peruse the photos by following the link, and give me your opinions. We're too shocked to be thinking straight.

Round and round we go

Yesterday I found two potential houses to rent. One in Houston Heights (near north), one near Rice University (near south). After work we headed out to look at them, choosing the north one first.

It's $2400 per month, 2200 sq ft, built in 2006. On paper it looks OK, and when we get out there ... it IS OK. We can't get inside, but we prowl around the yard. Looks clean. I like the front porch. There's a little problem with standing water in the front where it looks like they had a pipe leak. But, generally, not bad. The neighborhood is older. They must have torn down an old house to put up this one. GoogleMap says 11 minutes to the office. It looks like a bus stop to downtown is only a couple blocks away.

Then we drive about 20 minutes out south to the other place. Wow. We're in the upscale area now. Beautiful huge homes. Older, some built in the 1930s, but immaculately kept. It's cool. We find our house and, unfortunately it's right on the busiest street. Looks cute though. This one was built in 1950! It's only 2000 sq ft. They're asking $2250 per month, but I'm not living on a busy street. Sorry.

We drive around the neighborhood. We find one house we like after another. All older, but beautiful with big trees. Stately. Even Wife allows how she might relax her new-new criteria for these. Of course, we imagine that they are all over $1,000,000. They're huge. Here's an example.

I suffer a severe brain cramp and beg to go home.

We decide to eat out. We drive out W. Gray Street and pull into the same shopping center that had the Cafe le Jadeite we liked so much. Next door is Tony Mandola's Gulf Coast Kitchen. It's packed. The hostess says, "Wait two minutes and I'll get you in." And then she does. The menu is fabulous: straight out of the New Orleans French Quarter. Gumbo. Oyster dishes. Snapper. Salmon with shrimp and crab meat. We each have a glass of Kendall-Jackson chardonnay and consider the options. The waiter strolls up and says, "The specials today are blackened snapper ..." with some stuff that I immediately forgot, because then he says "... or tri-color fettuccine with grilled salmon, scallops, and shrimps in a zucchini, tomato and garlic-olive-oil sauce." For me: end of story. Wife reads every item on the menu, as usual, and then picks "Salmon Sophia": salmon topped with lump crab meat. I decide a cup of gumbo couldn't hurt me either. We order. Hot French bread shows up. Yummy. Wife's salad and my gumbo arrives. Gumbo is not QUITE as good as my own, but darn near. It's got a huge crab claw floating in it. The entrees show. All conversation stops. Wife loves hers and won't even share a bite. I love mine and share 1/4 of a scallop, which is still almost more than a mouth-full. On the way out we tell the hostess, "We'll be back."

Brain cramp was totally relieved.

How To Over-Analyze A Decision

As we spiral into a decision on getting a house here in Houston, one of the obvious drivers is the best financial choice to make. Let me lead you through my thought process in trying unsuccessfully to decide between buying a townhouse or renting one. Feel free to jump in at any time when you see errors in my logic.

Let's do an easy one first: CNN Money Magazine suggests the following:

1. Determine the cost of buying a property you're interested in. In my case a brand new townhouse 10 minutes drive from work with about 2200 square feet of floor space. We believe we can buy it for $350,000.
2. Determine the price to rent a similar property in relatively the same location. We found a similar townhouse, but older, that rents for $2500 per month. Multiplying by 12 months gives a yearly cost of $30,000.
3. Divide the price in step 1 by the rental cost in step 2, i.e., $350,000 / $30,000, to obtain a ratio of price-to-rent (P/R). In my case the P/R = 11.7.
4. The Magazine says nation-wide if the ratio is below 15.0, it's generally better to buy because house prices have fallen or rental prices have risen or both to the point that historically people who normally rent can afford to buy. That increases demand and house purchase prices start to rise. So, since 11.7 is less than 15.0, we should buy. Money Mag caveats the thing by saying, "... but each region of the country is different.", then they handily provide the historic ratios for cities including Houston. Historically Houston's ratio has been as low as 13, so even taking that into account, we should buy.

But I don't like the townhouse or its location. And I'm not sure we actually WILL be able to sell it for what we paid for it in 1-5 years if I decide to retire. And I definitely don't want to retire in a townhouse.

So I get out my Excel software and start building a cashflow model. Things are about to become out of control. Please fasten your seat belts.

I decide to compare the cash going out the door over the next 20 months between the two options.

1. If we buy we have to put 20% down, $70,000. Mortgage payments are on the order of $1680 per month. Taxes will run about $9000 per year or $750 per month. So $70,000 down plus $2430 (1680+750) for, say, 20 months is $118,600. Renting for 20 months is easy to figure: $2200 times 20 months = $44,000. Obviously we want to rent and not buy if we're only going to be in the place for 20 months. I can live with that even though I don't like the rental place either.

2. But wait, I can write off the mortgage interest and property tax on my federal income tax. A tax deduction -- I've not seen one of those in 15 years. This is exciting. If I'm in a 25% tax bracket, 25% of the interest and 25% of the property tax isn't really going out my door. Interest each month for the first 20 months is about $1375. Add property taxes to that ($750 per month) and multiply by 25% and you get $530. Deduct that from my mortgage payment of $1680 and you get $1150 per month. Now multiply that by 20 ($23,000) and add $70,000 down payment and you find out that net taxes I've laid out $103,000 in 20 months. Still cheaper to rent since $103,000 is lots more than $44,000.

3. But wait again. I own a house if I buy. Assuming I can sell it for what I paid for it, I get my down payment and principle back in 20 months. I pay about $300 per month of principle on the loan each month. Multiply that by 20 and add in the down and you get $76,000. I've paid out $103,000 and gotten back $76,000 so in reality, I've only paid $27,000. NOW buying looks better since $27,000 is lots less than $44,000 I'd've paid in rent. Oh, crap. I still don't want to buy.

4. But wait a third time. If I'm renting, I get to earn interest on the money that would've gone for a down payment. If I can get 5% per year simple interest, on that $70,000 then in 20 months I'd have made very roughly $6600. So I can deduct that from my $44,000 rent costs and I get $37,000. Not good enough -- still better to buy.

5. But but but again, what if house prices don't stay stable? Suppose I can't sell the place for what I paid for it? Let's say the house price falls 10% during the 20 months I own it. So when I try to sell it, I don't get $76,000 profit, I only get $41,000 (76-35=41). Now my cash outlay has been $62,000 (27+35=62), not $27,000 and renting at $37,000 looks better.

6. Oh, heck, though, if house prices actually go UP and I can sell the townhouse in 20 months for more than I paid for it, then buying is definitely better.

7. But wait one last time, if I not only have to make a down payment, but also have to foot some loan and closing fees, then that comes right off the top. Let's say the house price stays the same through out, but that I have to pay $7,500 in fees at closing -- not unheard of. Now I've paid out $34,500 in total in 20 months and that's within the round-off error compared to the $37,000 for renting. And after all this, I still don't have a decision.

And we found a 4-bedroom house to buy that is 45 minutes out of town for only $230,000 which throws everything you've just struggled through into a cocked hat ... except that the house is not new and Wife won't consider it.

Somebody shoot me.

Grinding Us Down - No Luck at All

No luck at all.

Spent all day yesterday looking at houses back at Sydney Harbour in Cypress north of Houston, where we’d seen one house that we liked on a man-made lake. We looked at maybe ten houses from the three builders working there. We saw one we liked a lot, but it was directly across the street from the community swimming pool. Did we want to deal with that traffic and noise on the weekends? We saw one other one with the same floor plan, three car garage, larger lot, extra built-ins, and naturally it was the most expensive one we saw. And still with that hour-long commute.
We gave up finally, and had lunch, then drove 30 minutes to another new subdivision. Very nice. On a “lake”, catchment pond really, that wasn’t usable but provided a pretty back drop. It had a nice walking trail around it. But, we noticed that the water line as delineated by the slight erosion marks actually came above the walk-way. The pond is a retention pond for run-off during rains. If it comes up that high without a hurricane, what’s going to happen when you get 30” in a day like Florida just did? Also the four bedrooms were down relatively dark narrow hallway, the master bedroom was an “interesting” shape. Huge kitchen though, and beautiful view from family room and master bedroom.


So we decide to drive to Sugarland – another town that had some new homes on lakes. We’re following our realtor. I lose her on the expressway, but no problem, we have our sat-nav. Sat-nav takes us toward downtown, but no problem. Then crunch, dead stop. Lighted signs say, “Major accident. Freeway closed.” Chug-chug-chug. We finally get to where they’ve closed off the road, exit onto another expressway, and finally fight our way over to Sugarland. Our realtor has hit a similar problem on her more direct way there. It takes us nearly 2 hours to go what should’ve been 45 minutes. And, when we finally get there, the house we meant to look at is directly next to the pumping station for the lake. We don’t even bother to go in. The salesperson for the development says she has one other new build available. We drive over. It’s huge, and beautiful, and on the lake, and when we look across a big field in front of the house our realtor points out the prison farm about a mile away. Cross this one off too.

So what are we going to do? The house we like in Cypress means an hour commute each way. Also there’s just building building building going on. If we decide to sell, will we come close to selling it for what we paid for it?

To top everything off, poor Wife has a horribly swollen jaw from a bad tooth. She says she’s not in a lot of pain, but obviously she’s not feeling well. She’s a trooper and trying to hang tough until Monday when she can get to the dentist. I feel so sorry for her.

Only bright spot: I cooked fresh shrimp last night. I’d not even checked the price when I bought them at Kroger. As I unwrapped them I realize that a pound and a half only cost $2.50. AND, they’d already been deveined. I made them with a little tortellini with pesto and a tomato-carrot salad, and more than a couple glasses of wine.

At least something went right.

Finally ... Just A Day ... Mostly

Yesterday was just a day. I've not had 'just a day' since I don't remember when.

I went to work in my new Camry. I spent the morning thinking about how to negotiate a new software contract with a vendor. I arranged a meeting for next week with the team of people that's going to help me.

At lunch I walked seven blocks to the Federal Building that houses the Post Office. I had to go through airport-style security with US Marshalls because the federal courthouse is in the building. I even had to check my Blackberry because it has photo capability. I found the Post Office and mailed Oklahoma and New Mexico tax forms. The partnership I participate in has gas wells in those states. I didn't have to pay taxes, just file the form -- which tells you how productive my wells are. I walked back to work and got hot, but not steaming. It was a nice stroll.

In the afternoon thunderstorms blew in. At one point it looked like a tornado was cranking up -- cranking up pretty much outside my window. I called Wife and gave her "What To Do In A Tornado 101". She just laughed at me when I said, "Get in the bathtub and pull the comforter from the bed over you." So then I said, "OK, throw everything out of the front closet, climb in there and shut the door." More laughter. I gave up. The weather report didn't say anything about severe weather anyway.

I wanted to leave work at 5:30 but there was a driving rain storm, so I hung until 6PM. It was still raining, but never mind. I walked the five blocks to the cheap ($5) lot where I'd parked. No problems toodling on home.

Wife says that they've fixed the tub-shower, which would only do shower and now does both. She also shows me new mailbox key. The one they gave us originally didn't work.

Wife's cooking her world famous turkey cutlets -- turkey-burgers-with-a-kick. House smells great. She's also making cooked mushrooms in a glass Pyrex casserole dish on the stove. I eyeball that but don't say anything. It looks like it's working OK. Wife's done a great job of organizing what houses we should look at when we return to Sydney Harbour on Saturday. I sit in the living room and study her work, glass of wine in hand. The next thing I hear is the sound of glass shattering and the single word "Shit" coming from the kitchen. Yup, Pyrex bowl just disintegrated on the stove top. Wife decides the best thing to do is cry and walk away. I salvage the cutlets and clean up the mess, picking up the last glass shard with the bottom of my bare foot.

Food tasted great anyway -- particularly the crunchy bits.

I watched two American relay teams drop the baton in the relays. It's not our year for track and field, that's for sure. We look like we're sleepwalking in most of the events.

I did some more house hunting online then settled down at 10pm to watch men's Olympic beach volleyball gold medal match. Americans win first set from Brazil, get hammered second set, and then come out all guns blazing in the third and take it easily. Brazilians look like they just wilted in the 100F heat. Phil Dalhausser - The Thin Monster - is pretty scary. His CHIN is above the net when he jumps. He stuffed the Brazilian-also-monster "Jaws" three times in a row and I lost track of how many times in the last set -- but it was a lot. Cool.

Lights out. It was just a day -- mostly.

... And It's Not Near A Landfill & Other Good Things

Other good things first: my boss told me nice job today. I'd prepared a position paper outlining my proposed strategy for a new software licensing and support contract our project needs to negotiate with an existing vendor. My boss sent it to her bosses, who have to approve the contract eventually. They came back happy to her, and she came back happy to me. I bit my lip to keep from crying. It's been a long time since I felt useful at work.

In other news, Wife and I have grown increasingly frustrated with our realtor. We felt like we were not making progress. When I added up the time we had spent actually looking at houses we realized that it was seven calendar days out of the twelve we've been here. And if you count "looking-days" it was only five because four of the days were really half-days. Now, I admit some of the fault is mine because I've had to work, but still ...

Then yesterday Realtor calls and says, let's go look this evening. I worked until about 5pm. Wife picks me up at designated spot at designated time driving new car. We'd spent an hour at lunch time rehearsing the process. Practice makes perfect.

I get behind the wheel and start the drive northwest of Houston toward the town of Cypress. Traffic, to put it mildly, is a bitch. We figured it would take us an hour to get to the housing development; it took five minutes more than that. BUT ...

The houses at Sydney Harbor are all brand new and all sit on a man-made "lake". We walk into the first house and we love it. We find out that the lake is usable. All the houses have little paddle boats or canoes or what ever sitting behind them. The lake supposedly is stocked with channel cat and bass, but I didn't see any indication of that: water was pretty ugly. Lots of ducks swimming around though. This picture at the left would be the view from our bedroom window.

The area is very nice (no land fills that we could find ... or nuclear power plants or refineries). Lots and lots and lots of shopping just down the street. Golf course right across the road. Six minute drive to my commuter bus stop. Community swimming pool. Lots to like. Oh, yes, and the house has a balcony off the upstairs game room as you see from picture at left.

We only found three things that gave us caution: (1) The commute, as we discovered, is awful. It would take me an hour by bus to get to work. I'm thinking: take my laptop and do my writing for two hours a day. (2) The builder is not very careful: cabinets were dinged and scratched, paint where paint shouldn't have been, electrical outlets in strange places. We'd have to work all that out with the builder if we decide to buy. (3) The "lake" is narrow at the point where the house sits. We look right across at the people on the other side as you can see from the shot of our bedroom. Still, compared to houses we've seen, that's tantamount to the other house being MILES away -- most have been within spitting distance of our backdoor.

This builder has one other floor plan we are interested in and has two other houses available with the same floor plan as the one we saw. Other builders also operate in this subdivision. I suspect we'll be back out at this subdivision on Saturday to give all these a tour. Our realtor also has two other houses to show us in other subdivisions. Those houses are also on lakes (although the lakes are just to look at and not use). One of the houses is also part of a golf course community. All these houses are about the same one-hour commute.

We're happy last night and we drive home. It's now about 8pm. It only takes us 35 minutes to get back downtown.

We're hungry and we drive around near our apartment looking for a likely spot. We find a nice new strip mall with what appears to be loads of restaurants. One called Cafe le Jadeite calls out to us. We're severely under-dressed, but the maitre 'd is happy to seat us. Very friendly staff. Nice wine list. Lara is on La Crema chardonnay, I'm having Beringer. Lara has pumpkin soup with seafood and I have seared tuna for appetizers. We both have grilled halibut for entree -- hers with steamed mussels, mine with grilled shrimp. Superb, but they're Texas sized portions: we struggled to finish it all. Total cost: 64 Pounds Sterling (sounds better than $130). We'll be back.

Now ... if we just see some more houses we like ....

Check two things off the list

Our air shipment arrived at the house after the one false start chronicled in my last post. Wife in a slight panic because they forced her to sign off acceptance of delivery without letting her first check that nothing had been thrown out with the packaging. After cursory look, there doesn't seem to be a problem. We didn't have any small loose items in the air shipment. Mostly it was my clothes, tools, and our computer gear.

Memo to self: when we unpack the sea shipment, we don't even pick up a pen to sign anything until unpackers demonstrate that nothing's been left in the packaging material.

I was all set to connect up our Dell PC when I got home from work last night. I'd carefully packaged the cabling in separate and LABELLED plastic bags. (How good am I?) Everything was going smoothly until I tried to plug in the equipment: UK plugs; US outlets. No workie. Much gnashing of teeth on my part.

So, can't play with computer; let's go pick up new Camry. We toodle the 15-20 minutes or so over to dealership driving our rental Jeep Laredo. Rides like a truck. Steers like a barge. You have a nice view over the guard rails though. Slightly different than my Jag. We meet Gary, our salesman. Our car's clean shiny and waiting. Looks great. I mean GREAT. Gary gives us the once over. Puts the temporary license plate in the back window. Shakes my hand, and we're ready. We decide that since the route home is mostly expressway and Wife's not had a lot of experience with that, that we'd drive the new Toy home and back so she sees the route. We do that and WOW do we love the car. I'm very happy. We get back to the dealership. Plug in Lisa (nee' Fiona) the sat-nav in the Jeep and get Wife set to go. I pull out first; Wife right behind. We putt-putt slowly home. More on why at a later time.

So, new car - check. Air shipment - check.

Now if I just had a house.

A Moving Update

So after two weeks of no time and no energy, I'm finally finding the time to write again. I don't have time still so this is going to be nothing more than bullet points chronicling some of the trials and tribulations since the last entry on 4 August. In that last entry we'd just packed up the house and the loaders were coming the next day.

Tue 5 Aug - Loading went fine. All our stuff fit into 3/4 of a shipping container.

Wed 6 Aug - Cleaners came the following day. We let them in then bailed out to let them do the work.

Thu 7 Aug - Met our landlord and a representative from our relocation company at our apartment for a final inspection. It was a non-event. Landlord was very, very cooperative. In point of fact we'd left the apartment in good shape, but he was going to have to do work to get it ready to rent again after six years ... cracks to be repaired, bathroom fans that don't work, faulty boiler (water heater), kitchen range fan doesn't work, yada-yada. Too bad for him. We're gone.

Fri 8 Aug - Two taxis, compliments of Continental Airlines business class, met us at our hotel. Loaded all our stuff except a set of golf clubs into one taxi. Clubs went in the second ... how bizarre ... but we didn't have to pay for it. No problems leaving UK. Business class flight to Houston fine except Wife and I not sitting together. Breezed through US immigration, which had been a concern originally, got our bags and picked up Jeep Laredo that easily held all our stuff. I'd brought our sat-nav (formally known as Fiona in UK, but now Americanized to Lisa). She took us right to our hotel downtown.

Sat 9 Aug - Met our realtor, Marla, and looked at townhouses near downtown. Nice, nicer than I expected, but still no room to be outside in most of them. Relatively expensive too ... $400,000 sort of ... but big. Also looked north of city at some houses. Drove back out north after finishing and looked at cars. Dealerships closed on Saturday for some strange reason, but managed to talk to Toyota and to Chevrolet dealers just to pick up glossy brochures.

Sun 10 Aug - Realtor took us to look at houses way north of city. An hour commute or more. Liked the houses, but didn't love any of them. Cities were Spring, The Woodlands. Then west of city to Katy. None we loved there either ... except one model home for $650,000 on a lake that we would've bought if we could have moved in in less than nine months.

Mon 11 Aug - My first day at work. Surprised to find that I have a private mini-office with a super view of Houston. It is on the 43rd floor after all. Also found that my mobile phone is a Blackberry that allows me to receive emails, take pictures, and other stuff I'm not smart enough to figure out. Also found that I have a laptop. I'm not a big laptop fan, but I think it's going to turn our good at least in the short run. Had a whole series of meetings with people including my new boss to start to get me up to speed. By that night I really started to feel poorly. Felt like flu coming on.

Tues 12 Aug - Woke up feeling awful: stomach ache, aches and pains, feverish. Rallied as best I could and made it to work. Had luncheon meeting with two vendor reps that I'll be dealing with. I suffered through lunch eating only soup. Managed to hang in until 3pm then met Wife at hotel. She'd checked out at noonish. We migrated to corporate apartment about 15 minutes from work. OK place. One bedroom. Fairly clean. Better than a hotel ... and lots cheaper. We found a Kroger a couple miles away and laid in some supplies. I crashed. First day of no house hunting.

Wed 13 Aug - I'm feeling only marginally better, but went house hunting. Visited houses northwest of city and found two that were 'possibles'. One single floor one (Pink Brick House) I really liked, but it was built in 1998 and Wife was afraid we were inheriting someone else's problems. Other two story we liked (Red Brick House), but not good enough to go with. Cheap though: $243,000.

Thu 14 Aug - Worked until about 1:30pm then met Wife for more house hunting. Visited more townhouses. Saw one we loved, but right at intersection of two busy streets. Darn it. It's the first townhouse I really felt like buying even though it was $400,000+.

Fri 15 Aug - My day off. Drove south of city to Pearland with our realtor and hit the jackpot. Saw a house on a lake that we loved and another even prettier one, but with no back yard. We were sold. Brand new houses buying from a builder who we thought was anxious to sell. Excitement reigned.





Sat 16 Aug This day is a fog, but I know I thought I bought a car. I researched online and found a demo 2008 Camry that looked like a good price. We drove to Calvert Toyota and "Gary" brought it around for us. It has a moon roof that I'm not thrilled about and some other do-dads. Bad part: it's filthy. Looked like someone had had a coffee fight in the front seat and even stains on the ceiling. I know they can get that out, so we take test drive. I talk him down to $21,500 and we call it done. Then I try to pay for it with my AmEx card. Gary says, "Can't take credit cards." OK, well, I think I can work that out online. Then Gary asks, "Have you got insurance?" I say, "No." I use his computer and look up an agent online. It's just before 5pm and I call them. Can't help because they're closing, but transfer me to 24-hour help line. They can't help me because we have UK licenses and I'm honest when I say we've had an accident in the last year. Gary says, "No prob. We'll work it all out Monday." In the mean time Wife has looked out on the lot and found a 2009 Camry for the same price as the 2008 one I just bought. She is not amused. We drive home and I listen to litany of what I bad deal I made and how she doesn't like the dirt and how it has 7000 miles, not 5000 like he told us originally, and on and on.

Sun 17 Aug After a sleepless night worrying about pretty much everything, but especially about the car, I call Gary and tell him deal's off, but that I'll be out Monday to buy a 2009 from him. I actually did feel better.

Then I get online and start researching the houses we looked at. Oh OH. Several websites talking about a landfill in the area and the problems with odor that that particular subdivision has been having. A bit of time with Google Map and I figure out that our two houses are across the road from the site. F--k. We can't believe it and drive out to the houses on our own. At the first (Katy's House on the Lake), we meet our presumed next door neighbor who turns out to be Russian! Yes, they had smell problems when he first moved in a year ago, but now you only smell it, say, once a month late at night. Oh GREAT. We prowl around some in the subdivision and realize that you can actually SEE the site from our street. It's very depressing. We wanted that house. The builder asked $360,000 but was willing to take $325,000. I'd offered $288,000. Knowing what that it's next to a garbage dump, now I wouldn't take it for $88,000.

Mon 18 Aug I work all day and then we drive (Wife drives) to the Toyota place. She prowls around and we find a silver Camry we like. We set our negotiating strategy and are excited, then realize: it's got a sold sticker on it. We find another one and go inside to talk with Gary about it. He tells us that it is a demo also, but that he has a brand new one just like it. What does he bring to us? The one we wanted in the first place and thought was sold. He says, "Well, yes, but it's been 'sold' for six days, so I pulled rank on the other salesman and it's yours if you want." We want. Wife starts negotiating. At the point where she wanted the last drop of his blood, I start doing emails on my new Blackberry and ignoring the whole thing. Finally she hits a price and a really good price (according to what I could find out online) and a better price than I would've gotten by a couple hundred dollars. We sit and sit and finally talk to the finance guy. He talks me into extended warranty: four extra years (seven total) and 75,000 for $650. He also talks me into Lo-Jack theft protection for $250. I just spent all the money that Wife saved. But, actually she agrees both items are a good idea. We can't do the insurance thing so we (Wife) drives home.

Tue 19 Aug TODAY I work all day, except for a hiatus about noon. Wife calls: "Movers are here with our air shipment, but I don't recognize anything in the boxes." I jump in the car and get home. No boxes. Wife says, "They had all our paperwork but the boxes, when we really looked at them, were all for someone else." So I'm back in the car and back to work.

I just heard that they've located our shipment and are bringing it to the house. Hopefully all is good. Check in with me tomorrow.