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.