Home-a-Rama

We got hooked up with a realtor in Dallas - Brooke Hunt with Ebby Halliday Realtors. We spent a fair bit of time on the phone talking about what we were looking for in a home and reviewed a number of MLS listings that Dottie and I had pulled up so that she could get an idea of our needs and our priorities as far as criteria is concerned. Basically, it came down to:

1. Schools
2. Neighborhood and general area
3. Distance to work
4. Proximity to places where I could ride
5. Specific home elements

Numbers 1 and 2 were not difficult as we had several options. The schools in the northern area of DFW are predominantly good to excellent. DFW seems to pride itself on the overall quality of their schools and education and there are endless amounts of statistical data to support this. There is a rating system and a website devoted to education statistics broken down by school district and by indidvidual school. We used this as a guide to selecting cities and neighborhoods with schools that had high marks.

Dottie and I had spent quite a bit of time sifting through the listing in the towns that seemed like good locations overall and based upon my visits and drives from the week before. We had it narrowed down to four towns - Keller, Southlake, Grapevine and Flower Mound. We started with a list of about 60 properties and after weeding through them and checking the specific elementary and middle schools against the TEA (Texas Education Agency) ratings for those schools, we either kept it as one to see or tossed it in the trash. We set the criteria pretty high by only looking at elementary schools that had ratings of "exemplary" which is the highest rating. We didn't want to look too far into the future, but we at least wanted to ensure that the middle school was no less than "recognized", which is still a very high rating. The rating right below "recognized" was "acceptable", which pretty much meant that - acceptable - and we were not interested in any that were simply meeting the minimum established standards. This alone narrowed the choices to about half. We then looked at drivetimes and tossed anything that was greater than 25 minutes. That may sound severe, but the issue around the north end of DFW is congestion and it is often the case that something that is 10 to 15 miles out takes well over 30 and ofter 45 or more minutes in rush hour. This took our list down t less than 20.

We left the house at 4:00am on Wednesday to catch a 7:00am flight in Philly. Madison was excited and was wide awake the moment I woke her. We got to the airport and on the plane with no delays or incidents. We got bumped from row 30 to row 8 which was a nice bonus.

Brooke was not meeting us until Thursday, so we had the remainder of Wednesday to ourselves and I had planned to drive Dottie around and show her the areas that I looked at the previous week to ensure that she and I were on the same page (even though we usually are). We landed at 10:00am and after all the ordeal of taxiing, deboarding, walking forever to baggage claim to wait for what seemed like an eternity for luggage and then off to get the car, it was pushing 11:30, so we headed for the hotel for an early check-in and grabbed some lunch before we headed out.

We drove through Southlake and Keller before swinging north to Flower Mound followed by Grapevine. Dottie agreed that the areas were all very nice but also questioned the drive time from Keller and even the northern parts of Flower Mound.

The next day, we met Brooke and went about the business of driving all over creation, in-and-out of the car umpteen times and trying to take pictures and notes so that at the end of the day, we could narrow the candidates again. We found a couple of really strong candidates, but not as many as we had hoped, and at the end of Thursday we still had a few more to see.

On Friday morning, we found out that our two strong candidates went under contract, so they were no longer available. We headed out to look at the remainder of the list and Brooke threw a couple in that were just above our price criteria so that we could be sure not to miss anything that we could negotiate down into our range. We found one that we really liked alot and we decided to write an offer. Brooke submitted it and got a call from the agent a while later saying that they had accepted another offer. Addtionally, another one of our homes on the short list from the previous day went under contract, so we were now down to only one home that we liked enough to pursue purchasing.

We had a half-day on Saturday as we needed to be at the airport by 3pm to catch a flight home. The night before, Dottie and I scoured the MLS listings again changing our criteria a bit in the hopes of getting a few more to look at, and we came up with 5. On the way to see the first one, Brooke called to see if we could get into look at another that she had pulled up, and it had gone under contract that morning. When we got to the first one, we really liked it a lot. It was in a great area, it was a solid home - albeit on the large side at 3200 sq/ft - and it was in good shape with a really nice kitchen. When Brooke called the listing agent to ask some questions and to let her know that we might be making an offer, she was told that they were working on an offer at that moment. We just couldn't win. Everything we liked was getting snatched up before we had a chance.

We went to the last home of the day, a larger home in a very desireable area of Grapevine. It was desireable due to the fact that it was zoned into the Carrol Southlake school district and it was a solid and established neighborhood. We loved the home. It was in a heavily wooded neighborhood and it was the perfect size. It had some downsides - mostly a very small backyard and it needed a little cleanup and landscaping on the outside. We decided to make an offer and we were getting close to the end of our day and needing to get to the airport. Brooke had us fill out and sign all the blank forms for the offer and write a check for the earnest money. She even had us sign a second set for our back-up home if this one were to fall through.

She called the agent to inform her we were going to make an offer and we found out that there actually were NO offers on this place! We were excited for the first time that we found something that we really liked and that was actually available. We flew home and felt relieved that this was behind us and we were one step closer to the end goal.

Something we have done in our last two home purchases (Allentown and Westfield) was to plug our address into the national database of convicted sex offenders. The website is http://www.familywatchdog.us/ and it will display a map of the area where the address provided is located with colored dots on the map that identify known convicted sex offenders, their photos, the distance they are from the address and their conviction(s). We tried to to look up the home we were buying before we left but the website was down. When we got home, that was one of the first things we did and we were devasted to find that there were three within 1/3 of mile from our home, all convicted of offenses against children and one of them right behind us a few doors down. Needless to say, we promptly called Brooke and pulled the offer.

Sunday was a rough day. We felt frustrated and defeated. We went back through ALL the homes we looked at and reviewed them as well as our notes and photos in the hopes of finding a couple that we be good compromises at this stage of the game. We were still left with that one home on our short list from the day-one search and it was still a candidate, but we had a couple of issues with it, which is why it was number 5 on our list. It had no pool and no community pool either. Dottie expressly wanted one or the other given how hot it is in Texas in the summer (100+ degree days for weeks at at time are not uncommon). Additionally, it needed a kitchen rehab from the ground up - floors, counters, fixtures, appliances and a cabinet refinish at minimum if not new ones entirely - a costly adventure to be sure and we had just gone through all that when we moved here to Allentown - buying a home that needed TLC from the onset.

We managed to pull two from the remains of those homes that we tossed aside in favor of stronger candidates (all of which were now gone, with the exception of this one). We spent a few hours going back and forth between them. We had one really nice, large, updated home in a nice neighborhood. The commute was longest of the three and there was no pool, but there was a community pool. We had one in a great area with great schools which was down the street from a huge community and aquatics center and this one HAD a pool AND a 3-car garage. The problem was it was small. It was 2200 square feet and no basement (there are NO basements in DFW due to the soil conditions). The third was our home on the short list - a contemporary brick ranch, in an awesome wooded neighborhood in Grapevine. It had a three-car garage, nice landscaping, had been tastefully updated in most all the rooms and was very unique in the layout and design. It wasn't so unique that it was weird or would be a difficult resale, but just enough that it was appealing to us after seeing so many cookie-cutter homes. There was the issue with no pools and the kitchen rehab, but in the end after we weighed it all out, we decided that we should snatch this one up before it, too was grabbed out of our hands.

We called Brooke and told her what we wanted to do and she went about making it happen. She still had the other blank set of contract forms and the blank check we had signed the day before. A few hours went by and she called us to say that the agent had contacted her to inform her that another party that looked at the home over a week ago had decided they were going to make an offer as well. Dottie and I did not want to go back for another go round of house hunting. It didn't make any sense because we pretty much had exhausted the inventory and had a high degree of confidence that there wasn't anything left that we had not seen or considered. In an effort to get to the chase, we made a full price offer on the house and asked for nothing in the initial offer with the exception of a home warranty. We sat on pins and needles until the next morning when we found out that it was ours - they had accepted our offer over the other one.

Here are some photos: 3029 Ridgebend Drive, Grapevine, Texas

Next blog - Inspections and ticking clocks

Looking for a place to call Home

I have been going down to Dallas pretty much on a weekly basis since the end of January. In all those weeks I had no time to go site-seeing and get the lay of the land. A couple of weeks ago, Dottie drove back to Indiana to visit the family and on that same day I flew out a day early so that I could spend Monday in Dallas trying to get an idea of the surroundings and to figure out where we might want to live. We had been doing a great deal of shopping on the Internet using the North Texas Real Estate Information System. It is a powerful search utility that taps into the entire North Texas database of MLS listings. Using this and Google Maps (in Satellite mode), you can type in the address and not only see an actual satellite view from 100,000 feet to down around 500 feet off the ground, but in many cases there is also a street-level view that allows you to see everything around the house and as much of the neighborhood as you want to scroll through. It's not like being there, but it does allow one to throw out a lot of listings due to what you can see that is around them. Basically, it allows for superior screening. For example, we found several nice homes and we would have wasted our time driving to them only to find out that they were behind warehouses, chicken farms, big ugly ancient baptist temples, shopping malls and redneck neighbors.

So, on my free day of wandering through the north DFW metroplex, I went armed with information. I had put together a list of homes in various neighborhoods from the search process listed above. I have a GPS which has a companion website where I can put addresses into my profile on the web and then it downloads to my GPS. Once on the road, I'd only have to drive where the cranky old lady inside the box told me to (if you have ever owned or used a GPS, you know what I am talking about).

I set my clock for 5am on Monday and my plan was to drive all the way out to the farthest community we had been considering, which was Keller, and time it so I drive in to the office during rush hour. This would give me an idea of what I was looking at for commute time.

Up at 5:18...snooze bar x2...which begs the question - why nine minutes? Why can't it be 10 or 15? Better yet, how about a 30 minute snooze bar? Anything less is just a major annoyance...but wait...maybe that is THE POINT! Anyway, I get dressed and head down to the lobby of the hotel. The company has a corporate rate at a really awesome Marriott across the street from the office and they have a Starbucks in the lobby. I head off the elevator, my head in a fog and I can almost taste the 4-shot latte. I round the corner and the counter is closed. Bummer. I am too early...imagine that. But of course there are Starbucks on every corner anymore. I was a bit annoyed because it took me almost 10 minutes before I came across one. On a semi-related note - try going to Toronto and find a corner where there isn't a donut shop. There are many within eye shot of another.

So I get to Keller in about 25 minutes - longer than I had hoped but within my 30 minute tolerance window for a commute. I turn around and it's pushing 7:15 - perfect. The drive back took almost 40 minutes - and without incidents - only traffic. My understanding is that on mornings when there is an accident, it can take upwards of an hour or more.

I spent the rest of the day driving around the towns of Coppell, Keller, Southlake, Colleyville and Trophy Club. I spent the most time in Keller as that is where the most homes in our price range were. The problem with Keller is it is growing faster than the infrastructure that supports it. This is not only true of the roads but of the schools as well. It's like Fishers or Avon on steroids, only with nicer homes. Which reminds me...you don't find any vinyl down here. Everything is brick and stone. You'll find the occaisional wood back-side or cement board, but mostly it's all brick. This has much to do with the amount of sand available (primary component of brick manufacturing) and also the fact that labor is cheap and the brick mason trade is still huge here.

At the end of the day, I had a pretty good handle on the towns around the office. I had ruled out Coppell and Colleyville, mostly due to the age and style of the homes and the communities weren't planned all that well. Southlake was very desirable, but not likely due to the cost of housing there. It is much like Carmel with the majority of homes just out of reach for the average family. That left us with Keller, Grapevine and Flower Mound and we decided to focus our search there.

I spent the next two days in meetings and then flew home to Indy where I spent some very compressed time with our family and a few friends and then we all drove back home on Saturday. We spent two days at home getting ready for real estate agents to come out and do interviews so we could get the home on the market asap.

Next up...shop till you drop...

Here we go again...hang on

I received such an overwhelming response to my previous blog when we moved from Indianapolis to Allentown, I have decided to document as best I can the latest round of insanity.

First, some brief history for those of you who are not up to speed with the chaos in the Wood household...

We completed our relocation to Allentown on Labor Day weekend last year. On November 25, the company was informed that the corporate headquarters was moving to Dallas. This came as a hugh surprise to everyone, myself included. The company, Heidelberg Cement - based in Heidelberg, Germany, had been in the process of acquiring another company, Hanson Building Products, for quite some time. Hanson has operations all over the world, just as Heidelberg does, but they had key locations in the UK, Australia and Dallas, TX here in the US.

A massive undertaking was underway as of late September by the board of directors and a dedicated team of individuals to determine how best to integrate the Hanson organization into the existing Heidelberg organization. That is when the madness began. As a part of this "re-organization", the company decided that now was as good a time as any to begin streamlining and consolidating resources and locations - after all, we now had nearly 10,000 people in the US alone spread across nearly 1000 locations. I don't even know what the global stats are at present. What this essentially meant was if one was to be a part of the future organization, that would require being in Dallas, Texas. Many people did not get that option as the vast majority got what is referred to as "retention and severance packages". The company identifies key personnel that have experience, knowledge and value to the company that is not easily replacable by going to the open market. For those skills that are general in nature, they took the approach of hiring new in Dallas, and giving the existing folks a retention bonus to stay for X-period of time.

Thankfully for me, I was approached early on and told that I was included in the short list of individuals that were identified as relocation candidates by the IMO (Integration Managment Office - a fancy term that basically means "people in high places that make big decisions that affect people"). This list was around 20 people for corporate IT, and I was lucky to have my name on that list.

I don't think I could begin to document the true extent of the uncertainty and insanity that prevailed over the next few months. My situation was unique in that the team in which I manage did not exist in the Hanson I.T. organization and there was no plan to include it going forward in the new organization. Here is the chronology of positions and possibilities that were presented over the last 4 months:

• First, they had identified me to be a Field Services Manager, which is essentially managing a team of geographically dispersed people that are responsible for maintaining I.T. systems and hardware at remote sites like plants, terminals and sales offices. This was the same environment from which I came in 1999 to 2003 as a Sr. Technical Analyst before taking a Technology Lead role in 2004.
• Then it was identified that they needed to integrate the two company's Service Desk Organizations and they wanted me to be the Project Manager. This was to be a 1 to 2 year project with no clear picture of what existed at the end of that period. It was made very clear that there would most certainly be something, but it was not clear what that would be until further out. I did not like this arrangement for obvious reasons - the lack of permanence.
• Then there was a shakeup, the Director of the Service Desk Organization for Hanson was dismissed, thus leaving a vacancy at a high level. There were discussions as to how that should be filled and that it could be the existing North American SDO manager, myself or someone external. This opened up a lot of possibilities for me at this point because I could shoot for the Director position or the North American SDO manager if he were to be promoted into the Director. That latter seemed like a better move for me and the company as the leap to Director for me was too much and too soon.
• The North American SDO Manager got named to Director and then his former position was eliminated as non-essential in the new organization design. So, I took up the position of "Project Manager for the SDO Integration" and waited to see what developed as something permanent going forward.
• In February, I was offered a position in Corporate Purchasing as a Purchasing Manager specifically for I.T. related contracts and commodities. This was completely outside I.T., but it gave me something new and interesting to do and was permanent position going forward. It seemed like this was the best thing - at least at that time. I had some discussions with the Purchasing Director and was awaiting a formal offer letter which if I signed, established my role and title and basically started the ball rolling for the relocation process.
• Before I received the offer letter for the Purchasing Manager position, I got a call from my former manager, who going forward has a global responsibitility for specific components of our global infrastructure in I.T.. He asked me if I would be interested in something back in I.T. in the infrastructure team, based in Dallas for North America. I was excited to hear more and he stated it would be under a different Director than he and he wanted to meet with me. Apparently, in the process of identifying candidates to fill positions in this other part of the organization, my name had come up and whomever was sitting at that table had agreed that I would be a good fit. Later that same day, I received the offer letter for the Corporate Purchasing position.
• The Global Director for Application Hosting, a man from the UK, came over to chat with me about this opportunity. We had a good meeting and a comfort level was reached on both sides. In the end, he could not offer me a position and made no verbal indications that there would be an offer because I had an offer already in hand for the Purchasing Manager position. The company does not get into the practice of competing for resources. I first had to decide whether or not I wanted the Purchasing Manager position and if I did not, an offer MAY be given for this other position. It was quite political and stressful, but in the end, I declined the offer for the Purchasing Manager and accepted the position for the I.T. position.

So, my new position is titled, "Intel Global Solutions Manager" and essentially it is managing a team of 10 people, situated at various locations throughout the world. Our responsibilty is to architect systems and operating environments that will host the running of our company's critical business applications. It is a huge challenge and opportunity. My job started yesterday, and I didn't sit much all day. What time I was sitting, I was on the phone.

Oh, and by the way, we went house hunting last week and I'll write about that some time this week.

Blue Halloween

We were invited to a Halloween Party for last evening, the 27th of October at Lord Hall's Mansion in Orefield (Lord Hall is my boss, Hugh Hall and the theme of his party was old English). Dottie couldn't go because she was instructing a turbo-kick class down in Boyertown at the YMCA, so it was Madison and me.

Madison dressed up as "Obi Wan Kenobi". I don't need to tell you who that is. She has become enthralled with the entire Star Wars saga (so early!) after having seen the tail end of Episode 1. I explained to her all about the original (Episode 4) and there began the almost nightly viewing of the entire library, then repeating, and again.

I hadn't planned on dressing up, but I found out that everyone else was and not wanting to be the odd man out, I came up with this:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Greg1992/BlueHalloween

It was actually funny how I came up with the idea. We were sitting at breakfast the morning of the party and Dottie and I were talking about dressing up and in the newspaper, I came across this:

http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/02003EBDFEDFEA26

I have always wanted to see this act live, and had the opportunity about 7 years ago in Las Vegas when I was there for a work related convention. At the time, the tickets were over $100 each and they were in the upper deck. I have seen them a couple of times on television for brief segments, most recently on "America's Got Talent" (of all places, who'd have thought...) doing a riveting performance of Baba O'Riley, by The Who. Here is a link to that performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldxg87pDlI8

Anyway, once again, I just missed them as they were here Thursday night.

We did trick-or-treat on Wednesday night and Madison made quite a haul for the brief time we were out. We did one full block of our neighborhood (about 1/6 of the total). There are a ton of kids in this area of all ages and almost all the houses participated in the holiday, some just handing out candy, but many with decorated homes, themes and the owner's dressed up to some extent. It was a fun night.

Settling In

It has been a busy past few weeks. Last time I posted, it was after finishing the floor project in the upstairs. Since then, much has happened on the ongoing process of settling in. Our furniture arrived on schedule, along with our new mattresses and while I still have some trim painting to do, the master bedroom turned out quite nice.

I took a couple of vacation days two weeks ago and finally sorted out the garage, and had a last minute change of plan an where I was going to put all my tools, bikes and related stuff. I decided that I didn't want to pack the garage full again like we did at the last two places we were, but rather to utilize some of the basement space we have. The basement has two distinct areas, one that is the larger space under what is the "main home footprint" and one smaller space that is under the family room, which is a part of the home that is part of the garage extension off the "main home footprint". This smaller part is to become my workshop.

I moved everything not related to the cars or to landscape maintenance that was in the garage to the basement. I got both cars in, quite comfortably with plenty of room to get in and out on both sides of each car. This garage is only a foot wider than the old house, but it's amazing the difference a foot makes.

So now the basement looks like a dump again, with bikes sitting everywhere, boxes and boxes of bike paraphanelia, workbench cabinets and shelves everywhere and lack of a plan for how to put it together. I am taking two more vacation days next weekend to sort it out and my first step will be to use some concrete sealer/primer on the walls and then some paint. I bought some new shop lights to put up because like everything else in this house, there is a hodgepodge in that there are 4 shop lights now in the space, they are all different and are in varying states of operation.

I'll need to hang the bikes in a yet to be determined space along with wheels and then figure out how and where to mount the workbench and cabinets. Being that it will be mounted into concrete and not easily moved, I need to get it right the first time. Down the road, I would like to get some type of durable flooring, like vinyl or even some epoxy floor coating, but for right now the space just needs to be organized and usable.

I still have a ton of stuff to do and the list is mind boggling when I look at it. Much of it isn't small things, but still the larger more obvious tasks that will have a big payoff when finished. Some of the big ones that I hope to tackle before the holidays are:

• Finish painting the last bedroom upstairs (wall paper removed and currently primed)
• Remove wallpaper and paint the master bath (wall paper is down, but glue remains)
• Paint the family room and buy new furniture (probably the biggest payoff because it is ugly)
• Remove all carpeting and ceiling tiles in the basement and bleach wash the floors to get rid of the moldy mildewy smell (history of leaky basement - now fixed)

Aside from those there a hundred other tasks all waiting to be moved up in the list, but the place is starting to feel more and more like home.

I haven't been riding much at all over the past few weeks - perhaps 4 or 5 times in the last 3 weeks. This past weekend I got out both days and again on Monday and am intent on getting back into a routine. I have been venturing out further and further on the bike each time I go and there is so much to explore over the mountain to the south of us. Down past Macungie is the highest portion of the mountain and we drove around there last weekend. The climbs are not only steep, but long. I am going to need to drop about 30 pounds if I am going to ride well around here, and there is no doubt I'll lose some of that while I am hauling my big butt up and down these 15% grade inclines. The shortest climb I have done took me roughly 10 minutes. The longest was a little over 20 and the stuff we drove last weekend could easily be 30 or more.

We were invited to dinner last week by our next door neighbor, Mrs. Smith. She is dear sweet lady who is a widow and lives alone. We have gotten to know her and can see spending more time with her. We had a great time and she pulled out all the stops. She had the fine china out with the table set just so, and we had a 5-course meal with wine in real crystal and dessert. She really made us feel special and she referred to the event as "entertaining guests". We only hope she doesn't think less of us when we have her over for dinner to our house! We may have to consider having it catered.

Madison and Dottie are doing well. Dottie has been teaching both Turbo Kick and Spinning classes at various facilities in the valley. She gets free membership at the facilities at which she instructs as well as making a little money on the side.

Floor Refinishing 101

I just completed my first ever hardwood floor refinishing job.  It wasn't hard, but extraordinarily time consuming. 

 

When we had pulled up the carpeting in three of the bedrooms a few weeks back before moving in, we found that the floors had never been finished.  On top of that, they had paint smeared all over from when the rooms were painted at some point - obviously without a dropcloth.  I don't have any "before" pictures, but it was bad.

 

I rented a commercial floor sander two weeks ago and spent the entire weekend sanding down the floors in 3 rooms.  That was tiresome and I used every muscle in my body.  When I woke up on Monday morning, I could hardly stand up and walk.  It took about 3 to 4 hours total for each room, sanding in various grits and sweeping between each pass, until I was down to bare wood.  I had to get on my hands and knees to do the edge work with a hand sander and that was very time consuming, at least an hour or two for for each room.

 

I spent a considerable amount of time researching and deciding what product to use for the clear coat on top.  We decided we didn't want to stain the floor, but rather keep it in it's natural color.  I ended up using a water-based polyurethane on top of a base-coat sanding sealer.  The nice thing about this stuff was that it was fast drying and cleaned up with water.  I hoped that I could get the appearance out of it that we wanted, which was a high-gloss look.

 

I started Saturday, by sweeping everything (shelves, windows, baseboards, etc) and vacuuming, then, a damp mop over everything to catch any stray dust.  I put down the base coat, let it dry (about 2 hours), then got on my hands and knees to do a light, one-pass sanding according to the instructions.  From there, it was just time and patience layering the polyurethane one coat at a time.  I got the final coat down late on Monday night and it turned out great.  The photos can be found here http://picasaweb.google.com/Greg1992/FloorRefinishingProject.

 

The other hardwoods throughout the house looked great when we first moved in, but now they don't quite look as nice in comparison.  I'll be doing the rest of the upstairs at some point in the near future, once we get some other more immediate tasks out of the way.

 

Times Like These

It has been nine days since I last posted, and it certainly has not been due to a lack of anything to report. We were getting down to crunch time and working furiously to prepare for the move-in.

Last week the focus shifted from home improvement to preparing for the delivery of our furniture and belongings. We also continued our quest for phone service. In case I hadn't mentioned it, we were supposed to have a working phone line on August 8 and Dottie has spent way more time than necessary to get Verizon to flick a switch to activate the existing service that has been at this house for 35 years and to assign a phone number to it.

Last Monday after work, I managed to get Madison's room completed (wow, what a color - Fussy Pink, and Fussy doesn't even begin to describe it). Tuesday evening, I got the guest room primed. At the end of Tuesday, it was clear that I wasn't even going to have the upstairs complete before "move-in", but that was okay, it just brought a heavy sigh. You all probably heard it back home it was so heavy.

Wednesday evening, we managed to rip out the carpeting in the playroom and the guest room and somehow between the two of us, Dottie and I managed to haul all three rooms of carpeting (the master had been lying in the hallway for the last week) down the stairs, out the front door, around to the side and into the garage where it will stay until I can slowly feed it out to the street on trash day over the next few weeks. Lower Macungie Township has a limit to the quantity of trash you can set out each week, and believe me, we have A LOT of stuff to get rid of - so much so that I may still end up renting a small truck and making a haul to the dump myself.

Anyway, with all the carpet out of the upstairs it looks (and smells) like a totally different place. It sounds different, too because it is empty, but that will change once we get our stuff in. I will take some photos this week and post them so everyone can see the transformation in progress.

And finally...Move-In Day.

The movers showed up on Thursday morning - 8am on the nose. We had a team of 4, unlike the smaller team of 3 that packed us up. The lead guy was a challenge right off the bat because he talked so much and so fast that you couldn't get a word in edgewise. To make matters worse he had the most annoying southern redneck drawl I think I have ever heard.

After a quick tour of the house and putting protectors all over the floors, corners and door jambs, they were off in a fury of activity. Dottie stood at the island in the kitchen with the task of checking off items on the inventory sheet as they came in the door (they put a numbered sticker on everything when it is packed and it is inventoried on a sheet that is part of the documents they provide when the movers pack, load and drive off from the source location. Once at the destination, it all comes off and is checked against the inventory list created at the source). I was the "director" and was tasked with pointing the guys where to put things as it came in. This is necessary because things don't always go in the same place as the old house due to differences in rooms and purposes.

We were moving along quite well, conversing with the guys as they did their jobs and they were all good-natured and joking around with each other. About an hour or so in, I had just gone around back to put the patio umbrella into the table. I look up and the lead guy has just come out of the house, walks up to me and gets about a foot from my face and informs that "we" have a problem. Puzzled and taken a bit off guard as I don't know what he is about to tell me (we just dropped your piano, your couch is crushed, etc). He says that he has a guy that is ready to walk off the job. I ask why that would be and he goes on to inform me that it is because I am "on his back and riding him". I wish I'd had a picture of my face because dumbfounded is not even close to being accurate. I said, "what the hell are you talking about?" and he couldn't really construct a clear statement on to what the problem might have been, but apparently it had something to do with the fact that I was "on him" about "all the damages to our stuff", and he went on with his monologue that these guys have no responsibility for any damages that already exist and that they are just the movers. At this point I begin to get a little irritated (okay, a lot irritated) because the guy is in my face, rambling on and on and won't shut up. I raise my voice and let him know in no uncertain terms that I don't like him in face and for the third time, I have no idea what on earth he is talking about. He storms off and I am standing there just stunned. There had been a handful of insignificant things that were scratched or dinged or something and when it was noticed I would say something like, "oh, there is some damage on that piece, I'll note it on the sheet" (they give you a sheet to document damages). None of my comments were malicious, or even with any sort of "tone" other than informational because this is what I was instructed to do by the moving coordinator - mention the damage and make note.
The more I stood there and thought about this, the madder I got. I mean, it isn't like this was stressful enough without having to deal with crap like this.

My temper boiled over the top and I proceeded to make a bee-line for the truck - right through the house, across the yard up the ramp and into the truck. They guys were all standing there taking a break and talking about something related to what had just transpired. I said in a very irritated and confrontational voice, "so tell me guys, just what sort of problem do we all have here?" They looked at me almost as stunned as I probably looked when the lead guy blindsided me with this revelation. They all started babbling, talking over one another and I couldn't make sense out of any of it. The lead guy starts in again, and finally I raised my voice just under what would be shouting and said, "enough!". I told them that if they took offense to me simply stating that something was damaged then they were all a bunch of cry babies. I continued my own monologue and don't recall everything I said, but I am pretty sure that my feelings and opinions were quite clear. One of they guys, a larger fellow with big arms and tatoos provided a more clear explanation of what the issue was and it turns out that he had been making comments that he was getting tired of hearing people complain about damages that his company was responsible for. When our stuff got moved, it was put into storage which means that it was unloaded off the truck into a warehouse - piece by piece, box by box - just like it was loaded. Then it was re-loaded to be delivered. His point was that he wasn't wasn't upset with us, he was upset with the fact that they looked bad. He went on to say that they lead guy misconstrued the facts and took it upon himself to go out and tell me a thing or two about it. I was told by the lead guy that all I needed to do was to note damages on the paperwork and that there was no need to be telling all these guys about it because they didn't "need" to hear it (my guess is didn't want to hear it). I said "whatever" and walked off the truck.

Things were a bit quiet for a while and each one of the guys apologized and said the lead guy was kind of a nutty old guy and didn't know what he was talking about and that they lived with this sort of stuff every day (poor guys). The bigger comes up and he apologizes and says that his DAD isn't always a very good listener and takes matters into his own hands. We get all that stuff out of the way and proceed on with getting our stuff off the truck and quietly noting any damages.

They got it all unloaded by 4 PM and they wanted to know how we wanted the furniture set up and what boxes we wanted unpacked. I simply said to them that they could go and we would finish. There seemed to be some confusion about what I had just said based on the puzzled look on their faces. I restated that I wanted them to leave. Truth be told, I had had enough of them and the less time they were in my presence, the more quickly I could return to being a happy camper.

We set about doing the most important things first: getting clothing organized, bathrooms unpacked and beds setup and made up. That is about all we got done by 11pm when we all pretty much passed out on the bed.

Friday, we spent the entire day unpacking boxes. I don't know where all the stuff came from and it certainly didn't seem like we had that much in the old house, but it is clear that for 3 people we have way too much stuff. I focused on getting the office put together and getting Madison's toys all moved up into her playroom so she could unpack them. She kept busy the whole day reacquainting herself to her long lost toy collection. I am still amazed at how well she was able to occupy and entertain herself over the last two weeks. She has quite the imagination and is now starting to have imaginary friends and an imaginary daughter named Sally. Oh the stories she tells...

Saturday I spent a good part of the day moving things around in the basement and separating the mess that the movers made. I forgot to mention that during the unloading of the truck, I ran out to get a connection kit for the refrigerator. The relo company provided disconnect and reconnect services, but I hadn't heard from them on this end and I didn't want to wait, so I decided to do it myself. While I was away, the organized unloading of the truck that had been occurring ceased when I left. They pretty much just put stuff wherever there was a spot and a whole bunch of stuff got put in the basement that shouldn't have been. Additionally, they had mixed it all up and we had to sort through all the boxes to separate the stuff we wanted stored and left in boxes, the stuff we wanted unpacked and the stuff we needed to go upstairs.

It was when we opened a few boxes that we got a real treat. We had a bunch (and I mean many) boxes in the old house that were things that we boxed up to store. We also had stuff not boxed that was separated - baby clothes, electronic accessories and cables, and lots of books and games. It all got packed in whatever and wherever it would fit in a box. They even "unpacked" and "repacked" stuff we already had boxed. It was fun having to touch everything. At the end of the day, it was all sorted, all stored and organized on shelves in the "storage room" of the basement. Scratch that off the list...

Sunday, we decided we needed a break so we just got in the car and ran around all day. We had a few purchases to make and we decided to make a day of it. Everybody go something...Dottie and I got a much needed new mattress set for the new master bedroom furniture, Dottie got new gym shoes, I got new running shoes, Madison got a new doll from a really cool retro-toy store in Bethlehem, and we bought beer and soda to fill up our new "2nd fridge" in the basement. While in Bethlehem, we stopped at the Bethlehem Brew Works and had a couple of good beers before heading home for dinner.

Monday, I got out the mower and cut the lawn for the first time. It took much longer than I had expected. The property is about the same size as the old house, only with slightly different dimensions. It took me over an hour to cut it, but there was no trimming needed. There are 11 mulch beds in the yard and most of them are quite large, so it minimizes the grass to be cut. It does take more time to navigate all of them. I also took the time to sit down and sort out the TV and entertainment system setup in the family room. I hooked up the TV and DVD and when I turned on the TV, I had a picture that was shaped like an hourglass. The movers somewhere, somehow managed to break my TV. I have to file a claim form for all damages and supposedly they take care of any and all damages. I haven't read the "fine print" anywhere, so I am sure there are a few catches here and there. I think there is going to be a 42" plasma in our immediate future compliments of Paxton Moving Systems. They also managed to break both of our halogen floor lamps and one of my workbench base cabinets. I have a list of damages to both properties. The paperwork and follow-up is unending.

Today (Tuesday), the cable guys came back to hook us up with cable. When I setup the appointment, the options given to me were time slots from 11-2 or 2-5 and I opted for the latter. Of course, they show up at 1pm and nobody is home and they want to make it my problem. Dottie rolls in just as they are about to leave and they spend the next 5 hours connecting 2 boxes to 2 TVs with one piece of coax cable. I have no idea why that is. It would be like someone taking 2 hours to lace two shoes. Anyway, I get home and they have installed the wrong decoder boxes. We are supposed to have the newer, nicer digital boxes and we have the old analog ones that have only a coax connector and a single RCA connector. We have had enough incompetence and frustration with services to last at least through the end of 2008.

I went on my first ride today in over three weeks. It felt both good and and not so good. My last ride was on Saturday, August 11 - nearly a month. In and of itself, that doesn't sound so bad, but added to that is the fact that I had fallen off my program around the beginning of July. Before I had started commuting bi-weekly out here to perform my new job, I had been on a training program through Carmichael Training Systems (Lance Armstrong's coach) since October of last year. This was something I did to help me get back into competition and specifically it was to help structure my time so I could train as efficiently as possible. The program I was on had me riding 6 days per week with specific workouts each day. I knew I wouldn't be able to sustain that through all the travel and relocation, but I did my best. I came down sick with a nasty ear and sinus infection near the end of May that last well into late June/early July with took me out for a couple of weeks completely. When I was ready to begin again, we had all the troubles buying a house, which in turn took a huge amount of time (times 3 - 3 homes). From the beginning of July I was down to riding 3 or 4 days per week and by the beginning of August it was 2 or 3 and it all ceased the weekend before the move - nearly 4 weeks ago.

I went out after work for an hour, basically getting myself lost and finding my way back. According to my heart rate monitor, I covered almost 1000 feet of elevation in a 16 mile ride - and that was riding around the valley. I know that once I venture out for longer rides and up and over some of the mountains I will see 4k and 5k of climbing over a 2 to 3 hour ride.

I am going to try to get into my routine again. I'd like to race at the velodrome here next summer, so I need to get started now on a program. Shoot, I have plenty of time, it's not like I have anything else to do.

More to come...

Timeout, Consumerism and Murphy's Law

Friday we decided to take a much needed break - a sort of self-imposed timeout, so we drove down to Philadelphia after work to do a little shopping and have a nice dinner. Dottie met me at work around 4:30 and we headed down the PA Turnpike towards "King of Prussia" (yes that is the name of a city) where the "King of Prussia Mall" is located as well as a host of other shops. After a quick 50 minute drive down and we were there.

We had been catalog browsing for furniture in the last few months and are in desperate need of furniture for our bedroom having not ever had any "real" furniture. We had found some things we really liked in the Pottery Barn catalog, but we were concerned it might be too big for our new master bedroom.

We have gone from one extreme to the other in terms of bedroom size. In the old house, the bedroom was 16x20 - huge, with a great deal of un-utilized space. In the new place, the bedroom is a mere 13x16 and the big challenge is how to arrange furniture due to the way it is laid out. I don't think builders give any thought to how people might arrange furniture when they build homes. This room has a window one corner of the long wall, a bathroom door in the middle of one wall, a window in the middle of the opposite wall and a whole length of built-in closets on the other wall. There is really only one place to put the bed in this room and there is only room for 2 night stands and a very small vertical dresser. Additionally, we have a bit of concern about clothing storage as we have been spoiled by a huge walk-in closet in our former house that was nearly the size of a small bedroom.

We went to Crate and Barrel to look at a breakfast nook table that Dottie had spotted in their catalog. We could have ordered it and had it delivered, but we wanted to see it first. It is a round pedestal-style table in white with 4 matching chairs. It will look really good in the new kitchen with the cabinets and counters being all white.

This store was huge. There were two floors with housewares and some furniture on the lower level and and upper level that was all furniture. We were talking with a sales person and they informed us that the upper-level was actually a separate business under the same name and that they carry higher quality furniture than some of the stuff downstairs. If you have ever been to C&B or seen their catalog, they have some decent quality, well designed and relatively inexpensive stuff. The furniture on the upper level was significantly more expensive, but you could tell it was nice stuff.

We found a couple of beds we liked, but nothing that really grabbed us, until we saw one that we had passed by and managed to not see. It was a bit more than we wanted to spend, but we have always wanted some nice bedroom furniture and we promised ourselves we would stop buying cheap furniture that wears out in 2 years

This particular line is handmade in Vermont by a small furniture company that has been around for a long time. It is all wood...ALL wood - no MDF, no veneers - just solid cherry. It should last for the rest of my life. If it doesn't I'll have to return it.

We ended up getting the bed and dresser in the picture, plus a couple of nightstands. It isn't all in stock and when it comes in it will be shipped from a remote warehouse. We decided to wait and have it all delivered at once when it comes in, which won't be until the end of September. This is a good thing because we need more time to work on the floor of the master bedroom - we pulled out the carpet yesterday hoping to find a nicely preserved hardwood floor. Instead we found a floor that appears to be unfinished but with paint smears and drops all over it as if the original paint job was done without a drop cloth and then carpeting installed over it. We need to figure out how to get the paint off without sanding (if even possible) and then get some polyurethane on it before the furniture gets here.

My plan for yesterday (Saturday) was to get an early start so I could knock out two rooms. I was a little late getting out of bed, but I needed the sleep desperately. Most every night last week I got 5 or 6 hours at most. I got dressed and headed down to the breakfast room at the hotel around 7:30 and then headed up to get ready to leave. Dottie wanted to do a workout before she headed over to the house, so I took Madison with me to the house. We left at around 8:30 and I decided to take the time to get a quick haircut. I usually cut my own hair with the clippers (I have so much), but they are packed on the truck with the rest of our stuff. There is a Great Clips just down the way from the house, so I stopped there on the way.

We arrived about 8:45 to find that they don't open until 9. I decided to wait around until they opened, so Madison and I walked around the strip mall until they opened. Once in the chair it took about 10 minutes and I was as handsome as a mid-40's bald guy can be.

We headed to the house and as we pulled into the neighborhood, it hit me...I am locked out of the house. We had a locksmith out on Friday. They were there for over 4 hours and the final bill was $300. We have eight locks in the house at $15 each, plus the service call charge, plus one new deadbolt. Dottie was at the house while they were there and I was at work, so she took care of it and she had the keys. I neglected to get a key from Dottie before I headed over to the house. I called her and without even saying "hello", she said to me, "I bet I know why you are calling me".

She was just finishing her workout and needed to take a shower before she headed over to the house, so I decided to make a run to Sherwin Williams to get more paint. This turned out to be an epic trip. I searched the GPS for "Sherwin Williams" and it came up with a location 2.2 miles away on "Broadway Street". I set the GPS to take me there because even though it is close by, I wasn't sure how to get there from here.

It took me almost 30 minutes and I drove the most convoluted path of nearly 10 miles to get there because the GPS changed my route no less than 4 times while I was en-route to the store. To say I was frustrated was a massive understatement. I mumbled some choice words under my breath, to which Madison responded, "what's wrong daddy? are we lost?" She knows this because when the GPS changes your route, the voice announces "checking route" and makes this loud 3-beep sound. Somewhere in the recent past, I said I was lost and now she correlates the two.

Have I mentioned that we live near an amusement park?
http://www.dorneypark.com/

I mention this now because it is the reason for this epic fiasco of a trip. It turns out that the paint store is about a mile from Dorney Park, and so are we, however, we are on opposite sides. I didn't know this at the time, but I do now. I should also mention that it is 9:30 am on a Saturday morning when the inflow of traffic to the park is at it's peak.

Now, here is the significance of this: our GPS has some "setting" that are user-configurable and one of them is "default route method". Your choices here are:

• Fastest Route
• Shortest route
• Highway Preferred
• Streets Preferred
• Pedestrian
• Traffic Optimized

The default is the "Traffic Optimized", and that is where mine was set. Can you see where this is going? Feel my frustration yet?

I am trying to drive to a location 2 miles away and there is a massive amusement park between me and my destination. The GPS has a route plugged in for me, but every five minutes, it "checks the route for traffic" and if it finds any, it changes the route to an alternate one. It's 9 am on a Saturday morning and all roads lead to Dorney Park, so basically the GPS is bouncing me through every conceivable pathway to the paint store only to discover every 5 minutes that the current route has "traffic". At this point, I don't trust that the GPS "knows" what "traffic" is. Does it consider "traffic" to be 1000 cars? 100 cars? 10 cars? Anything greater than 1 car?

I finally get to the paint store and when I get there I am so irritated and now even more so because I have driven past this store dozens of times over the past few months of being out here, but I never noticed it.

After I buy my 12 cans of paint and load it up, I turn right two times to get out of the parking lot, drive 1.5 miles down Cetronia road, take a left on Minesite for another .5 miles and then turn into our subdivision. It took about 5 minutes.

It was after this that I realized that GPS is sort of like having speed dial on a phone - you never really learn or remember anything.

When Madison and I arrived (at 11 am), Dottie was there already and she sheepishly apologized for not giving me the key. It wasn't her fault. I knew the locks were changed...I didn't ask for a key.

I set about to finish the playroom that I had started Thursday night - the night I got started late because I left my painting clothes at the hotel. All I had left to do was to cut-in around the trim and pull the masking tape off. I knocked that out in about 45 minutes and decided to take a lunch break around noon.

We were eating sandwiches in the kitchen and Dottie asked me about the ice maker not working. I checked and the water spout in the fridge door worked just fine, but we had no ice. I pulled the fridge away from the wall and looked in behind it. I squeezed in a bit more and pushed it away from me and suddenly water began coming out of the supply line connection. Dottie quickly grabbed some towels and went about trying to see where it was coming from and getting it stopped.

It was coming from the connection itself where it went into the pump. I ran downstairs to the basement in hopes of finding a shut-off. I wasn't able to trace it because the ceiling is finished, so I shut off the main. I took apart the connection and inspected it. I flipped a rubber washer over in one side of the connection and put it back together, making sure it was very snug. I turned that water back on and it seemed to be okay. I went back upstairs and left the fridge pulled out to check on later to see how it was holding up.

An hour or so later, I checked on it and there was moisture on the bottom of the fitting and some evidence of a few drips. At this point I decided to make a trek to the local hardware store and get the stuff to fix it properly. Dottie needed something to do that would help me and it was at this point we decided to pull up the carpet in the master bedroom so that while I was out at the hardware store she could get all the staples and tack strips up. It took longer than I had expected (this statement is a central theme to this entire relocation process), but we got it up in about an hour and I took off around 3:30.

I took a short drive down to Emmaus (the next town south of us) and found a little mom and pop store. They didn't have the fitting and the guy said from the description and picture I drew for him that it was a proprietary fitting that I would probably have to order from the manufacturer of an appliance repair company. I then went into amateur engineering mode. I bought some Teflon tape, a new compression washer and a tubing cutter. I should have bought another rubber washer, but I didn't think of that until later.

I got back around 4pm, and I crawled in behind the fridge to disassembled the fitting again. I cut about 6 inches off the copper tube, replaced the compression washer, slapped some Teflon tape on both sides of the connection and tightened the crap out of it. I would have preferred a new connector, but the reality is that when our stuff comes next week, we are putting our fridge in the kitchen and the existing one in the basement, so it's a moot point.

It was now 5pm, and our friends Don and Kathy were coming over from Princeton, NJ to meet us for dinner. Kathy is in for the week from Vienna and we haven't seen her since Christmas, so we were looking forward to getting together. We needed to leave by 5:30pm in order to get back to the hotel to clean ourselves up.

So there I was, the end of the day, and the only thing I really accomplished toward my painting goal was 45 minutes of trim work. That's it. I did manage to get that second room painted - Madison's playroom. The reward was not only a feeling of accomplishment, as small as it was on this very trying day, but also the reward of how good it looked. What a transformation it was from the former decor. The old paint was a really dull off-white - almost a pale grey color, and it had some absolutely obnoxious floral wallpaper on one wall. On the floor was some dark blue-green shag carpet. The package, as a whole, was a feast for the eyes. It is now done in a bright yellow called "Friendly Yellow". It's bright, yet subtle and not too bold. I'll post some pictures of the rooms later.

We got back to the hotel and got our showers and I had a much deserved beer (well, okay, 2 beers). Don and Kathy arrived around 7 and we set out for my favorite restaurant in Allentown, a place called "The Federal Grill". It's a really cozy and warm place with a huge antique bar. They have great steaks, seafood and make great martini's. We drive down there to find it is closed. The sign in the window says, "closed indefinitely due to fire".

We ended up going to a place called "Pistachio's" not too far from the house. They have good food and a huge menu. It reminds me of LuLu's in Indy. We had a good meal and a good time catching up. We got back to the hotel around 10:30 and we promptly put Madison to bed. I stayed with her for a few minutes after "lights out" - as I usually do - and I fell asleep next to her. I awoke about 30 minutes later and went off to bed.

Work, Paint, Sleep, Repeat

I awoke at 4:45 this morning by my brain informing me that I had way too much to do. I tried to go back to sleep, but the battle had already been lost. It was too early to go down and get coffee and breakfast, so I decided to read, which I don't do much of and always tell myself I need to do more of.

I have been sleeping soundly, just not long enough. The days so far have been fully consumed by work and work - work at my job, and work at our new home. Tuesday seemed exactly in most all ways like Monday, and expect that the rest of this week and next will be the same. In some ways, I can't wait for our stuff to arrive so that we can move in, yet at the same time, I wish I had more time because progress just isn't happening fast enough.

It's hard to estimate time when doing projects like this and no matter how well and throrough it may have been thought out, it seems that it's always underestimated. According to "the plan" (something Dottie and I worked on before we made the trip out here), we should have wall paper down in 5 rooms and 3 rooms painted as of Wednesday. The reality is that we have 3 rooms de-papered and only 1 room painted. The closer I look, the more I find to do - for example: I just noticed last night that in 3 rooms the previous owners have painted the ENTIRE room in the same color - walls, ceiling, baseboards, crowns and windows.

I have gone about taking down all of the upstairs window dressings and hardware (which defy any sort of taste whatsoever and will end up at the end of the drive on trash day) and to my amazement, they were some of the most unusual installations. Unmatching brackets, 5 different sizes of screws and styles, crooked rods - you name it...it's there.

Sunday, I actually used the Wagner Power Roller for the first time. It's an interesting device in that it most definitely works well and saves a huge amount of time - while painting. The time saved during painting is mostly consumed during cleanup - for a single room. For a really large job like a basement or a same-color multi-room job it would be a huge time saver. For single rooms where the color is changing, I am not so sure about the savings. I had three walls painted in 1 hour - no second coat required. The paint is delivered continuously to the roller and in a heavy enough feed that one coat does it. I spent the next 2 hours cutting-in and trimming and then about an hour cleaning up.

Monday, I left the office at around 4 and got started about 4:30 at the house. I got two closets painted. What a pain. It took 3 hours to paint 2 closets. They way the interior was constructed, I couldn't get the shelves out and the top shelf was so high that I couldn't paint the shelf or the ceiling above it. Argggh. Dottie continued to rip down wallpaper and Madison managed to occupy herself for the day by watching movies on the portable DVD player, or just by roaming the house and doing whatever 3-year old girls do - make believe.

Tuesday, I again went over after work around 4:30 and met the Invisible Fence guy. We got a plot plan for the fence and an estimate and fortunately for us they had a cancellation for Wednesday, so there were able to come out and actually get it installed. The dogs have been in the doggy-resort since Thursday night and are running up a healthy hotel bill, so we need to get them home soon. We were going to do a physical fence - and we may still do that, but in this township you have to have a formal survey of the property, a plot plan, materials list, example photos and lord knows what else to get approval for a fence and it takes weeks to get the rubber stamp of the township government.

Wednesday, the Invisible Fence guy came to do the install and was there over 3 hours. Typically it takes about 1 to 2. With all the landscaping and the paver sidewalks he hand to hand-bury a significant portion of the cable. They use a ditch-witch for the open parts of the yard and can burn through 100 feet in about 10 minutes. After signing off on the work, I set off to pick up the dogs. When we returned home, they were freaked out. They have no idea where we are. Jake spent the entire evening standing on the back porch, at the bay window of the breakfast nook peering in. Everytime I passed by the window, he was standing there, on alert.

Last night, Thursday, with the hopes of actually getting some painting done, I left the office at 4:30 and discovered that I had left my bag with change of clothes for painting at the hotel. I was not happy. Not only is it rush hour, but around here, there are only two main arteries headed east/west (in and out of New Jersey) and they are pretty much a parking lot for an hour or so. On top of that, our hotel is in Bethlehem (the next town over) so the drive is east, toward NJ and takes 20 minutes on-way without traffic. I ended up not getting back to the house until after 6pm. After a quick bit for dinner, I set out to get something done.

I had the playroom stripped, spackled, sanded and ready to go (I had been doing that on the abbreviated past two nights). Once taped, I started rolling and with the Wagner I was done in just under an hour. The cleanup took half that time - another 30 minutes. All that is left is to cut-in at the trim and windows and I am going to try the accessories that came with the Wagner for that instead of an angle brush.

We are enjoying working on the place, but anxious to get in. The logistics of this are tiresome. Dottie has been getting up and heading over in the mornings and working while running errands that need to be done. She looked at a preschool on Tuesday, and it was really nice, but too far away. Then there is the hassle of getting all the services started and installed - internet, locksmith, cable, fence people, phone - PHONE - thank you Verizon for ignoring repeated requests to get us connected - another story entirely.

This weekend will undoubtedly be a painting frenzy because we need to get two more bedrooms painted and then the big rooms downstairs - Family Room and Living Room - before our stuff arrives next Thursday. At that point, all renovations cease and we go into "unpack mode" which we will have the entire holiday weekend to do.

More to come...

Life In PA...so far

This is day three in our new surroundings. I intended to do a day-by-day, but we are barely able to find enough time to sleep right now, so I will summarize everything so far.

- Thursday, August 16

We arrived Thursday evening into the Lehigh Valley (Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton) around 6:45 pm. This was after departing the hotel in Indy at 5am, a quick trip to the old house to pack up the dogs, bikes on top of the VW and personal items needed for the next two and a half weeks in temporary housing. We rented a 14 foot U-Haul to carry all the stuff we needed to have with us at the new house while we are in temporary housing (we aren't moving into the house until August 30 and are doing improvements in the interim). Dottie drove the VW with Madison and the two dogs and I drove the U-Haul with all our stuff.

The first order of business was to drop off the dogs at the Shady Rest Kennel. They close at 7pm and we arrived at just a few minutes before closing. We had planned on arriving around 6pm with plenty of time, but after a late start and having a 3-year-old and two dogs, well, it kinda throws off any sort of timeline.

So we dropped the dogs and headed to our home for the next 17 days - the Hilton Homewood Suites. What a great place this is. It is basically a 2-bedroom apartment with pretty much everything you need - including free housekeeping! It is quite comfortable with big rooms, nice beds, a full kitchen, 3 televisions, cable, wireless Internet, free breakfast (actually good food) plus a pool, tennis, basketball, and probably other things I can't remember. We got cleaned up and headed to dinner in Bethlehem to a place I really like - the Bethlehem Brew Works. They have good food and great beer.

We ended up getting back to the hotel around 10 and were exhausted. We didn't unpack anything, and pretty much dropped our bags and went to bed. We had our closing on the house scheduled for 11:30am and we still had to go to the bank before closing to get our certified check for the down payment, so we had to get an early start.

- Friday, August 17

I awoke around 6 and was rather sluggish, but after some marginally acceptable coffee, I was starting to brighten up. We got the check, met the agent at the new house for a final walk-through and headed to closing.

We met the owners at closing - Mr. and Mrs. Dean - and they were super-nice people. They were well into retirement years - I would guess them in their late sixties to early seventies. Mr. Dean was a former engineer (and it showed). He had all sorts of documentation in a file he gave me of with lists of everything imaginable. They gave us contact information and said if we had any questions we could call them. Mrs. Dean gave us the rundown of all the neighbors, their kids and their grandkids. It was a very pleasurable meeting and you could tell that they took very good care of their home and wanted to pass a lot of information along.

After closing, we grabbed some lunch and then headed over to the new house to unpack the U-Haul so we could get it returned. The movers were delivering my car on Saturday, so we only had one vehicle. On the way to return it, we were driving through the rough part of downtown Allentown when Madison informs mommy that she has to pee. We had two-way radios and Dottie calls me on the radio to tell me this. In this part of Allentown, I wouldn't even stop to pee myself, so it was out of the question. We didn't really know how far we had to go, so we tried to encourage her to hold it, but in the end she couldn't. We were both upset about having to put her in this uncomfortable position and she was apologizing, which made us feel even worse. We got the truck dropped off and luckily weren't very far from the hotel, so we headed straight there to clean up before heading to dinner. When we got to the hotel, I pulled the child seat out to clean it up after the accident, and it was bad. I think she held it for the whole day. Most of it was in the cover of the child seat, but a lot of it went into the back seat of the car. I tore apart the child seat and Dottie took it down to the laundry room at the hotel. At this point, we couldn't go anywhere for dinner, so I went out hunting for carryout pizza.

- Saturday, August 18

We were again on a tight time schedule because we needed to be at the house by 8am to meet the Internet installer and the moving company which was dropping off my car. We were scrambling to get out the door and trying to get a quick breakfast at the hotel when Madison spills milk on herself. Dottie took her upstairs to change her and by the time they got back downstairs, we needed to go so they had breakfast on-the-run.

After dropping me off at the house and unloading a few things from the car, Dottie headed out to buy supplies for our massive wallpaper removal project. Madison stayed at the house with me and she was giving the task of putting her toys away (we brought about 1/4 of the toy inventory). She was unloading boxes in the kitchen and carrying things one-by-one upstairs and for a moment I thought about carrying the boxes upstairs so she could be more efficient, but then it occurred to me that she was busy and it would occupy her for a longer period, which is always a good thing.

The Internet installers showed up around 9 and they were in and out in less than 30 minutes. I dug out the wireless router from the old house, plugged it in and made a couple of configuration changes and viola - we had wireless Internet in the house.

I then went about the task of unpacking some of the boxes in the garage off the U-Haul that contained tools and other things we needed for our rehab work. I also opened up ALL of the windows in the house, which literally took me 20 minutes to do because there are so many. There was that smell of "old, dusty and musty" from the house being closed up for so long (the Deans moved out in May and they were only in the house 5 months out of the year anyway).

My car was delivered by the moving company while Dottie was out, so now we could travel independently. My friend Don Rogers arrived also, to help us out with some of our work (Don took a new job recently with Bristol Myers Squibb and is based out of Princeton, NJ - a mere 45 miles away). Don and I set out for lunch and after feeding the crew, we set out for two destinations - Sherwin Williams for paint supplies and Circuit City to buy a GPS for Dottie so she won't get lost out here. If you have never had a GPS, I can't recommend one highly enough, especially when you are in unfamiliar areas.

We ended up getting back around 4pm and Dottie had already made significant progress on the wallpaper removal. She had nearly completed what will be Madison's playroom and had started on what will be one of the two guest rooms. She put Don on that room to finish it up while I continued to remove massive amounts of poorly installed and poorly chosen window dressings throughout the upstairs. We cleaned up the day's mess and packed it in around 6pm.

The four of us went for dinner at the Bethlehem Brew Works (again). This may end up being our new "Some Guys" because we like it so much. After a nice (albeit slow - the service could be better) meal and a couple of really good beers, we headed back to the hotel for the night and Don headed home. Don's wife, Kathy, will be coming in on Tuesday from Vienna, were she is currently living and working for Amgen on a two-year assignment. We are looking forward to seeing her again.

We were all exhausted, and I fell asleep on the way to the hotel, again on the sofa while watching few minutes of TV with Madison, yet again while we were in our story time, and then on sofa afterward before finally heading off to bed around 11. I awoke this morning at 5am to Madison screaming and crying. I went in to her room to console her (she has been having "bad dreams" the last few days - probably having to do with the disorientation and being out of her normal routine). She went right back to sleep, but I could not. The brain was already churning on "the list" and after about 30 minutes of staring at the ceiling and trying to turn it off, I decided to get up, get some of that marginally acceptable coffee and write this.

- Sunday, August 19

Today, I start painting. I plan to get the Master BR done and Madison's room at minimum. If I can get to her playroom, that is a bonus. Dottie will continue with the massive wallpaper removal project, which could very well take all of this week because 9 rooms plus the hallway, stairway and utility hall. We realized yesterday that basically we need to paint the entire inside of the house, including ceilings, closets, trim, and doors. Right now we are focused on getting the rooms done that will have furniture in them. We can deal with the rest as time goes on.

I go to work tomorrow for the first time as an Allentown resident and will be continuing to work on the house during the evenings this week and next week. We have this weekend and next with the long Labor Day weekend being the "move in" weekend. We hope to have some semblance of order at the end of Labor Day. I suspect we won't be fully unpacked until around Halloween.

More to come...

Van Winkle Here...

OK, so I haven't posted since November and I swore when I started this that I'd try to keep up and actually post something interesting. I guess my life isn't all that interesting. Actually, I think it is...at least to me it is. The problem is a lack of time.

Which brings me to a point. I hear people who don't have children complaining about how much time they DON'T have. I used to say the same thing and if I could only go back and look at all the time I thought I didn't have, it'd be pretty damn eye-opening.

Rear-view goggles can be amazingly clear and I often wish I just had a fragment of the time and money I feel I have wasted in the past. I guess what's important is to use that knowledge going forward and make the best of what I have.

I suppose in the bigger picture that posting here on a daily basis isn't really all that important, but then again, for me it's one of those small things that serves as a reminder to me to reflect on what I am thinking as I write. No epiphanies here, just a bit of clarity and re enforcement.

We aren't in Kansas anymore...but it kinda looks like it

I flew up to Edmonton, Canada on Monday morning for a week of business meetings. It's cold - not as cold as it was in February of last year, but a heck of a lot colder than home. It's dry, too.

What's weird about Canada, is that you really don't feel like you are in a foreign country. It looks like the states, the people look the same, many of the stores are the same, the cars are the same, and the food is the same. But there are those subtle differences here or there that are reminders that this isn't home:

• currency (loonies and toonies)
• measurements (it's all metric, baby)
• hockey (the national pastime...if there isn't a "church of hockey" there should be)
• silly hats (touqes)
• Tim Horton's (and infinite number of donut shops)
• the funny dialect (eh, eh?)

It gets light late and dark early and I am two hours off from my 'normal' schedule at home...just enough to muck up the sleeping patterns.

I am going home tomorrow and nothing will make me happier than seeing the place get smaller in my rear view mirror.

Daylight Savings Time...I don't like it

Ever since Indiana stopped going to DST every year, back in 1974 when I was 11 years old, I have been ticked off about it. Being robbed of an hour of daylight when you are a kid really stinks. As an adult, and an "outdoor" type of person, I had always thought it'd be great if we could have it again because then I could have 3 or so hours after dinned to do whatever I wanted outside.

Well, year after year Indiana's State government tried to pass a bill to make it where Indiana would begin to observe DST once again. Unfortunately, year after year, it met with resistance from all walks of life and it just seemed like a wasted effort. But last year, that changed and it was able to pushed through the General Assembly and passed. So, for the first time in over 30 years, we "sprang forward" in April, and just "fell back" last week.

You'd think I'd be happy about this. Well, it turns out I am not. What's different now versus the past 30 years? Simple...I am a parent now. When you have kids, your whole life's schedule is upended. For me, it meant that if I was going exercise outdoors, it would have to be in the morning (a feat which still amazes me that I have been doing it because I am absolutely NOT a morning person, let alone an ACTIVE morning person).

So this is first problem I have with it - sunrise progresses forward from December 23 minute-by-minute until April 3, when it is daylight at 6am. This is great because I can be out the door at a quarter of six and have an hour of daylight to exercice before I need to be home and getting ready for work. The problem is that the very next day, April 4, when we "spring forward", we actually go back in time, as far as daylight is concerned because now it's not daylight until 7am.

My next problem with it is that it really screws up the circadian rhythms when it's dark at 7:45 pm on April 3, and then the next day it's not dark until 8:45pm.

The same thing occurs on the other end of things, but it's even worse because my 3 year old has no concept of DST and her "clock" runs by the number of hours she sleeps and not by the clock on the wall. I don't get the luxury of that so called "extra hour of sleep".

Finally, I hate winter. I hate the weather, the dreariness, the dank, dark and short days. Well, it's even worse now because on November 1, we suddenly lose a whole hour of daylight on the end of the day. It's winter, only accelerated. Talk about depressing...

So I have decided that I like it better the way it was. The days seem more "natural" in that the daylight and darkness progresses throughout the year and we don't have any of this "time warp" and artificial daylight business. DST isn't really "Savings Time" because it's relative. It's relative to who you are and how you live your life. To me, it's more like DLT, or Daylight Losing Time. Heck, if anything I'd rather see us set the clocks AHEAD in the fall and BACK in the spring. That's be great because it'd be daylight when I get home from work and I can actually do something with that.

Maybe I should just get two residences - one in Alaska for the summertime, and one in Hawaii for the winter. That would solve it all.

Back to the daily grind

Back in the office after a week in sunny Florida.

The ManageFusion conference was quite good this year, however, I returned with a massive ear and sinus infection that put me down on the sofa for the weekend. I love being sick over a weekend...it's like watching time go down the drain.

Getting ready to take yet another trip...this time to the other extreme - dark and frigid Edmonton, Canada. Better now than in February...been there, done that.

Been off the bike for a week and I'm looking forward to getting back on this week and also starting my off-season weight training program.

What's up today at ManageFusion

Lot's of geeky stuff. I don't consider myself a geek in the general sense, but I must admit I do get geeked out about Altiris and MF.

ManageFusion 2006

I am spending the week at the ManageFusion 2006 conference in Orlando, Florida. It is a fabulous conference to learn about all things client management related to Altiris, HP, Dell, Intel and many other partners.

One of their really cool technologies is SVS or Software Virtualization Solution. It facilitates application management by installing applications into a "virtual layer" on a PC or laptop. This layer can be activated or deactivated on the fly to make an application available to a user without having to install anything on the system.

Check this out for more info: