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.

House full of boxes -- pictures at 10

Packers arrived today on time. No, idiot, not the football team -- three guys: Mark, Rob, Terry. They got right to work at 9am with piles of paper and boxes. By 2:30pm they'd packed the bedroom, kitchen, one bath, most of the living room, and our office/junk room. Wish I'd thought to take a picture, but I'll get you one tomorrow.

Wife and I spent day while they were working throwing out a dumpster full of stuff that US Customs wouldn't let us bring in -- mostly food, but anything flammable too.

Terry took the TV, VCR, satellite box, and steam iron off our hands. His niece is moving into her first place and has nothing. Well now, she has a TV, VCR, satellite dish and steam iron. None of which would work in US, so good donation to charity for someone like me who doesn't have time or inclination to put the stuff on eBay and deal with all that.

Had a nice lunch at a restaurant in Ascot, except Wife froze her little noogers off. And she has such nice noogers too. It was really too bad.

I figured out how to use a loaner laptop at the hotel to get onto the Internet. Internet news included:

We're going to have TWO cars for us to go to the airport on Friday. I think I scared them a bit when I told them we had five check-in bags, a set of golf clubs, and four carry-ons. Hey, we're travelling business class and we're all within allowable. And Continental Airlines provides 'free' airport transportation in the London area, so send them cars this way.

Hurricane is due to hit Galveston, TX just south of Houston on Tuesday. Good timing, God. I owe you one.

We have our hotel booked for our first weekend in Houston and a (single) rental car booked. I'll get all our luggage into it, I bet. Or make Wife take taxi to hotel while I drive, I guess.

Guy I sold the Jag to thought enough of it to write back to me saying that he really likes the car already. That was nice to hear. I like win-win propositions.

Now, time to stagger down to the hotel restaurant for a bite then a TV movie and then some sleep. The moving guys are back at the house at 07:30 tomorrow to finish packing and loading the container. They THINK our sofa is going to show up. Any bets?

Screw the Moving - Let's Party

I stupidly played golf on Friday with a couple guys from my usual Saturday crowd. Nick, it turned out, had certificate for a free round of golf for a foursome, so we got off lightly on cost. Weather cooperated. Rain on one hole only. I played poorly on the front and well on the back. It was a great day.

And then the pain began. I got home

We were awake until after 2AM on Friday night trying to get the apartment organized to move. Consisted of trying to figure out what to take on the plane with us, what to put into air shipment, what to ship via sea, what to throw out, what to give away, what to consume before we leave. And on and on and on. I was proud of myself: I only screamed out loud five or six times.

I roused myself on Saturday to play golf for the last time with my posse though. Wife dropped me at the course. Looked like it was going to rain like crazy. Six of us were ready and willing to play. I started proceedings with a birdie on the first hole. (That's good for you non-golfers.) And then, in one of those most rare of events, proceeded to play one of the best rounds of golf in the last five years. I shot 84 for a net 66 with my 18 handicap in our golf society. It might even be good enough to win the medal competition we were all competing in that day. How cool is THAT?

We had our usual pint of beer each and settled up our bets after the round. I won low net on the front and low net total, even though the lads only let me play off 15 handicap within our little group.

What a great way to end my UK golf career.

Wife drove to club, picked me up, and we all migrated to one of our gang's house for a BBQ. Wives, girlfriends and other hangers on also showed up. Weather cooperated, and everything was just perfect. The guys gave me a copy of Harvey Penick's "Little Red Golf Book" -- a classic instruction manual by one of the game's most respected teachers.

Today's been spent trying to make sense of chaos in getting packed to move to the hotel tonight.

And I'm late. And that's all for now.

The Move Moves On

Here're a few updates on the progress this week on our move from UK to Houston:

1. Wife soloed (solod? solo-d? drove by herself...) in Prius, did great, loves the car. Well done, Sweetie.

2. Discovered that this coming week 4-8 August is the major kick-off, "on-boarding" meetings for my new project in Houston. Too bad I can't make it. Would have been nice to feel like part of the team. Gives me solid indication of how (un)important I am to the whole process. I did receive some of the pre-reading: 64 Powerpoint slides. Egad. Maybe I'm glad that I'm NOT going to the meetings.

3. Finished all required tasks at work. Still plan to put in an appearance on Wednesday next week when they're cleaning the apartment, but I feel good about having brought closure to everything.


4. Had my going-away luncheon at wonderful Italian restaurant in Bagshot: Belvedere Restaurant. Lobster with black tagliatelle pasta, lemon sole with seafood sauce, chocolate cake. We had about 12 people there. My boss said nice things about me. They gave me two beautiful golf shirts from Wentworth Country Club -- one of the most upscale golf clubs in England. I had managed to wrangle a couple invitations to play there during my time here. Pretty cool to have been there and have the shirts to prove it.

5. Discovered that UK charities won't take electrical items like: TVs, VCRs, satellite boxes, irons, telephones, table fans. Seems that if someone should be hurt by a malfunction of one of these really dangerous devices, the charity is liable to be sued. Oh, but you CAN sell these things on eBay and people can buy them. I asked what I thought were pretty reasonable questions when talking to 1/2 dozen charities about this. For example,

"Why don't you just call this person whose house just burned to the ground and tell him that you'll leave a TV on the curb (or kerb) at 10PM tonight. If it's not there in the morning, well, you won't lose any sleep over it?"

"If you can sell it on eBay without worrying about liability, why don't you sell it to the needy person for a pence (or penny)? Even if you have to loan him the pence?"

"Why don't you have the person sign something saying, 'I know a telephone is a dangerous device, but I'm taking this anyway and if it explodes, I won't sue Charity XYZ.'?"

6. Found out that my old acoustic guitar that Dad gave me a long long time ago, is actually a Gibson L0 (I think) made in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1965. It's worth as much as $1000 as a vintage guitar. Cool. Thanks, Dad.

7. Email storm blowing concerning loss of our sofa. When I arrived six years ago the movers could not get my American sofa up the stairs to my English apartment. In UK often the arms of a sofa are detachable, making it significantly shorter and able to get around the narrow stairways and tight corners English builders seem so fond of. Since mine was one piece, the movers said, "Sorry. We'll have to store this for you until you leave."

I said "OK", figuring I'd be here a couple years and that would be it. Well, now it's six years later. Came time to get the sofa out of storage and guess what? The storage company had reorganized their warehouse and lost my sofa. I went so far as to send them a picture of my matching love seat (which would and did make it up the stairs).

Storage company writes my moving company, "Can't find it. Will take a couple weeks to track it down."

Moving company replies, "Wrong answer. We're packing a sea shipment at the apartment on Tuesday at 11:30. Have the couch there or else."

I'm sitting back and loving it.

8. Heard from US corporate relocation person at long last. I reported in one of my posts, I think, that the Company now estimates what it should cost you for 30 days of interim living and pays you that in a lump sum ... and you have to live with it or dig into your own pocket. I now know what our number is: less than I hoped, better than I expected.

9. Got pre-approved for a home mortgage. Six-point-something 30-year fixed assuming 20% down payment.

10. Heard from a Company-approved Houston real estate agent, who then passed me to a second real estate agent, who gave us some ideas about what we're up against in Houston housing market. (a) Live close to work; pay more; live in an older home or in a town house. (b) Commute for about an hour a day each way, live in a big, recently built house with a yard and a dog ... and a swimming pool ... in a country club ... on a golf course ... near a lake for boating and fishing ... and alligator wrestling.

11. Talked with good buddy of mine who used to live in Houston. He verified everything the real estate agent said. He also said that my Northern California view of a townhouse doesn't match Texas reality. He said he "downsized" while he was in Houston moving from a 3000 square-foot house to a 3300 (not a typo) sq-ft patio home. He loved it: bigger house, no yard work in 90F and 90% humidity. He may have a point and I'm going to let the agent show us some townhomes.

12. Company-approved agent wrote with selection of two short-term apartments to use for interim living. Both eat up more than 1/2 our lumpsum per diem. No eating, no driving the car, I guess. They look pretty acceptable actually and we'll pull the trigger on that Monday.

13. Completed inventory of all items in flat. Tried to do it with video camera, but gave up. Eventual spreadsheet had about 250 entries, 200 of which were items over $50 -- which was what I was required to provide moving company.

14. Snuck off and played golf today with a couple buddies from my Saturday morning golf crowd. One of the guys had won a long drive contest and so we all got a free round of golf. Weather was cool and blustery, but it only rained for one hole, so (for England) it was great weather.

Coming up:

Last golf game with my Saturday posse tomorrow.

BBQ hosted by one of the golf gang after the game.

Finalize sale of Jaguar on Sunday.

Move to hotel.

Drive an hour or so to see a friend of ours from Kazakhstan who now lives in UK and has just had a baby. Have "Sunday roast" with them and drive back to hotel.

Other than that, things are pretty quiet.