No More Makin' Fun of THIS Ol' Guy

We live on the golf course at our country club -- hole number five of the Bridges course, for those of you who are keeping score. I bought a golf cart when we first moved to Houston from a guy that lives across the way. I paid a grand total of $700 for the old ... 10-year old, in fact ... cart. It ran OK mostly, but was so slow it could hardly get out of its own way. I was embarrassed because the guys I play with would make fun of me and how slow I was. If I was first in a line of carts going down the path, I could fairly hear the people behind me sighing with impatience as we putt-putted toward the next hole ... or hum-hummed toward the next hole actually, since we have to use electric carts on our course. Basically I was a moving roadblock. Plus everyone knew it as "Jack's old cart" and they'd made fun of him too when he had it.

I dumped another $200 into the old cart when the solenoid went out a few months back. Fortunately it had crapped out on me right by the house, so I pushed it back into the garage and called for help. Got it fixed. No big deal.

Still, we could do better so we started looking at the two shops near us. One was a bit of a drive north up I-45 ... Golf Carts of Conroe. Gregg The Salesperson there was really nice. His prices seemed good. He was happy to work with us. Had good suggestions about what accessories we should get. Knew all about the carts. He sold EZ-GO and Club Cars.

The other place was nearer the house: prices were not as good and salesperson not too knowledgeable. He did however have a street-legal Star electric car[t] that we could use on the course. Looked just like a golf cart, but had seat belts, turn signals, etc ... and went like a bat outta heck. It looked really good too. Wife was sold, but I didn't want to hassle with insurance, title, registration, etc. even if the Prez was willing to give me a 10% tax credit for buying a (supposedly) "green" vehicle. Even with the credit it was quite a bit more expensive ... and we really weren't going to use it on the street anyway.

In the end we decided to go with the cheaper cart from Gregg. It's an EZ-GO Freedom RXV. It jumps when you put your foot down and looks great. You can see for yourself in the pictures at the end of this post. It has a ball/club washer, sand bottles, a cooler. We bought the "Sun-brella" package in maroon, white and black. The Club's carts are maroon, so we fit right in. I was going to feel like one of the real people. No more making fun of this old guy.

Gregg was even was going to give me $600 for my old cart. (The other place was only going to give $200.) I thought that was generous. The new cart was to be delivered in three weeks, after they put all the accessories on it. I could keep using my old cart in the mean time. And, guess what: I'm playing one night and blam, the old cart stops dead in its tracks. This time I'm quite a ways from the house. I walk back home ... it's 94F, by the way ... and hope that the batteries just need water. I carry back a couple jugs of water and try pouring them in. No go. Fortunately a buddy, Keith, comes by and agrees to use his cart to push me back to the house. Once home, I fiddle with some more things and can't get it to go. I call Gregg, who says, "Don't worry about it. We'll straighten it out. If we can't, I can only give you $300 trade." I'm still happy with that.

A few days later they drop off the new cart. The delivery guy finds a corroded wire in my old cart. He fixes it and drives the old cart right onto his flatbed and drives it away. I got lucky for once!

I'm happy; Wife's happy ... and so are the guys behind me on our course when we're driving down the cart path. What do you think? Cute, eh?

Back In the Blog Saddle Again

A New Year Resolution: get back to writing a blog post every day. So far so good for 2009.

When I last left you back in mid-November we'd just closed on our new house. The intervening weeks have been busy as you might expect. Household goods from the UK were delivered with only minor damage to a few insignificant items.

Goods that had been in storage in California showed up several days later. No damage there either.

Beautiful big Amana stainless refrigerator got delivered and installed without incident thanks to ABT online shopping site. Ditto with LG washer and drier from Home Depot. Just last week we chose an 8'-long leather sofa with a reddish cast and two matching swivel chairs from Louis Shanks furniture store. We also picked out a bedroom set with bed, chest of drawers, and two night stands. While we were at it we picked a beautiful mirror for our guest bath. The salesperson is pressuring us to get an oriental rug for the room. We saw one we liked, but it was out of budget. Later she called back and gave us an even better price. We said, 'no thanks', but she's bringing three options out to show us when they deliver the furniture on 10 Jan. Here's a link to updated house pictures.

We're still lacking window treatments. Wife is handling that. And we've not found her a car yet. She's got her heart set on Mercedes Benz. That'll take some real looking to find one within budget.

Shopping has consumed most of our time, but we managed a few nice events. For Thanksgiving we went to the buffet brunch at The Club. It was great and a needed break from unpacking.

We also attended our company Christmas ... excuse me ... Holiday Party at the Intercontinental Hotel. They served the best buffet I've ever had. They had two bands playing and had 'for fun' gambling going. We had a great time. We stayed home on Christmas Day and made steaks on the barbecue.

For New Year we went to the party at The Club again. (Gosh, it's cool to be able to say that.) We were seated with some truly nice people and had a fun, fun evening. The food was fabulous and the band was good even though they didn't play any Latin music that we could salsa to. Wife got called up on stage to dance a couple times and acquitted herself extremely well, I should tell you. Who is the oldest person in these pictures?



I've been walking the four golf holes that surround the house about everyday. I can start on hole #5, play #6, cut across the course and play #3 and #4 and be back at my house. I've also played one of the full 18 hole courses a couple of times. The first time I broke 100 and I didn't think that was possible. There's water on 14 of the 18 holes. The next time I played, well, it was a disaster, but that's golf after all.

So that's a good start for the New Year: one post done and 364 more to go.

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.