Tralfaz

Author: geoffand

  • House Hunting Journal – Hidden Clues

    Real estate in the bay area is a bit surreal. Words and phrases often have subtle subtext that isn’t obvious if you haven’t been steeped in it.

    One thing that you quickly learn is that the price often isn’t what they want the house to sell at.  Clues to this are prices that are too precise.

    For example, knowing that you can afford $700K, you can be looking at some great properties that seem to fit. Great yard, good neighborhood, nice kitchen, and big enough. Cool, $699K, you can afford it.

    Bzzzt.

    Your agent breaks it to you gently. It will sell well above $700K. This is the game as it is played.

    Or, how about this, you have been watching a listing, it hasn’t been plucked (closed in a few days) so you think you might have a chance. You drive by, you do all the research you can.

    You finally call your agent, and he tells you that they will accept offers Thursday, and they are expecting 10 or more qualified offers.

    Sigh, you are positioned to lose again.

    The glory and curse of the Internet. You have access to Zillow, Trulia and Homes.com, but key details are missing, only accessible to agents. I am sure this is to maintain their iron clad grip on the MLS listings, but it sucks for us small fish.

    All I want is a house where I don’t fear for my safety, have “enough” room, and it is comfortable for my dogs, all for $700,000 dollars. Is that too damn much to ask for?

    Apparently so.

    Oh, and my doctor told me to lose weight. Add that to the “shit I already knew” pile…

  • House Hunting Journal – Listings

    There is no doubt that the Internet has greatly enhanced the experience of hunting for a house. Trulia, Homes.com, and Zillow all put hundreds or thousands of listings at your fingertips.

    However, after sorting through the mountains of listings, I have some observations:

    • Some (far too many) agents phone it in. Looking at the photographs is the first symptom. Out of focus, poorly framed photos. I know I can take better pictures with my iPhone. You are going to make 3% on a $700K house, or $21K, HIRE A PHOTOGRAPHER DAMMIT.
    • Wide Angle Lenses. Nothing like a phat wide angle shot to make 836 sqft look like the damn Playboy Mansion.
    • Complete “don’t give a shit” in preparation. No clearing of clutter. Barely make the bed, stuff stored in the middle of rooms. Yep, no effort at all to tart up the place.
    • Tacky descriptions. Alum Rock seems to have replaced the “A Mountain View” as a euphemism for East San Jose. You know what else is awesome? All capital letters. The Caps-Lock key is your friend.
    • Lipstick on the pig – Here is an actual snippet from a pretty much completely un-updated old house in a desirable neighborhood: “The traditional Willow Glen bathroom has a full tub and a separate stall shower with tile wainscoating.” For $734K to boot.

    It does suck to be in a market where they don’t even bother to hide ceiling water damage in the photos. And that house sold for $50K over asking.

    All for the privilege of bidding and losing on houses.

  • House Hunting Journal

    House Hunting Journal

    Moving to the next phase of our San Jose adventure, it is time to begin the hunt for a house to buy. All the insanity of the Bay Area market is in our face.

    Starting over the holidays was a bad idea. Inventory is dismal. Almost nothing in our price range or in neighborhoods we like, picking are slim.

    But we got our loan preapproval, so we are locked and loaded.

    Scary thought: Borrowing the maximum for a conforming loan, $625.5K. Gulp, that is a LOT of debt.

    It is the second week of January, and some new houses hit the market. Did a little open house roulette this weekend. Wow. The pent up demand is off the chart, so the traffic was insane. Even shitty houses, were mobbed with people.

    And what is it with the agents? I swear they are so full of crap that they can’t help but drip it out of their mouths.

    Every, and I mean EVERY open house I attended the agent was either telling other people how many offers they already had, or that if they were serious, they better make an offer before Monday.

    Puh-lease. Even the house that was a short sale (not mentioned in the description) and that it was expected to take 60 days to clear.

    There is hope though. Our agent is good, inventory is (slowly) increasing. We are well qualified for our mortgage. Not having kids is a plus, as we don’t care about schools.

    This will be a running series of posts on our experiences.

  • Marking an Ominous Anniversary – 5 years

    Marking an Ominous Anniversary – 5 years

    Today marks an ominous anniversary. Five years ago today, I had a heart attack and almost died.

    There had been numerous times in my life where I started to glimpse my own mortality. Being a motorcycle rider and racer, close calls are par for the course, but hardly unique. Hiking near thousand foot drop offs, and similar events that could horribly go awry with the ultimate consequence.

    But January 3, 2010 will forever live on in my memory.

    On Saturday, January 2nd, Barbara and I went for a hike in Sabino Canyon, the “Blacketts Ridge” trail. It is about a mile of easy trail until you get to the trail head, then it is a brutal uphill climb up a rocky, and treacherous path. Something that I had done in as little as 54 minutes (parking lot to the end of the trail).

    I felt off, wheezing and struggling. I thought it was just hunger, as I had started dieting a week before with the Christmas shutdown. About 1/2 way up, I tossed in the towel and went back.

    After lunch, I felt better, and thought nothing much of it.

    Sunday morning, January 3, I went to the Gym as usual. An hour on the elliptical trainer, and I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t get my heart rate above about 110, and i Just felt sluggish. I was convinced I was getting a flu or some related illness. I also recall not being able to work up a good sweat.

    After this unsatisfying trip to the gym, I went home and began to shower. BAM. Fully symptomatic, shooting pain down the arms, chest felt like someone was standing on it, having trouble breathing, I stumbled down the hall to my wife’s office and told her I needed to go to the hospital.

    I was in agony. The pain was intense, and it wasn’t going away. As I lay writhing on the couch, my wife did the smartest thing she could have done, she called 911. That action alone probably did more to save my life than anything else that day.

    The EMT’s put on the EKG electrodes and didn’t see anything (note: they aren’t miracle workers, and don’t always get the right diagnoses, but they were there and that is what is important). My wife insisted that they take me in.

    Why is it important to call 911? Well, you get the fast track into the ER. No queue, no check in procedure, you just get triaged right away. Very very important.

    Once I get to the hospital, they hook me up to their better machine, and alas, I am indeed having a heart attack. Full blown myocardial infarction. Off to the Catheter Lab for angioplasty and a stent.

    Turns out that I had a 100% blockage in the descending node of the right coronary artery (note: if it was the left coronary artery, I wouldn’t have made it to the hospital)

    A stent, some not-fun drugs, and a short (3 day) hospital stay and I was back on the path to recovery.

    To this day, I take anticoagulants, beta blockers (teh devil in a pill), statins, and an ace inhibitor. I watch (sometimes better than others) my diet, and I try to exercise as much as I can.

    Today is 5 years. I hope for another 15 or 20, but regardless, I am thankful to be alive.

  • New Years Fun

    New Years Fun

    We missed the Fourth of July (we were picking up our dogs), but we read about how some poor sod not far from our new apartment had lost his hand when an illegal firework accident (a co-worker tells me about a park a mile or so from where we live that is chaotic with professional grade fireworks, so I am not surprised).

    But last night on New Year’s Eve, it was pretty insane. Starting about 6:00PM there were sporadic fireworks and random explosions. Not much different than in Tucson or Chandler.  I was hopeful that it wouldn’t be too bad.

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  • Apartment Living – The Final Straw

    Apartment Living – The Final Straw

    In case you have been living under a rock and not read my award winning blog posts (ha ha ha), we relocated to San Jose from Phoenix, and slipped into an apartment as a temporary landing spot. We have tried to make the best of it, and my prior posts have highlighted some of the challenges we have experienced. It isn’t all bad, but…

    Last night, around 8:15 PM, we suited up the boys in their cold weather gear (it was about 45F outside, and Greyhounds have no body fat or fur) for their evening walk.

    As we stepped out the door, the building down the way had some kids lighting and fanning fires near the entrance-way for the building. Fuck.

    Barb of course confronts them, and the security guard swings by. We call 911, and the police come out. Barb and the security guard were following the punks, so the Cops got to scare them good.

    Later, since my wife was the one who called the police, the dispatcher called her on her cell, to alert us that multiple cars in the complex had been broken into.

    Great.

    Fortunately, we had begun the process to crank up the house search. This is “lighting the fire” so to speak.

  • 2014 in Review – The Job

    2014 in Review – The Job

    2014 was a chaotic year for many reasons, not the least of which was career related. With the move, it turned out that a promotion was in the works as well.

    The move itself was traumatic. Sadly, the timing couldn’t have been worse. The market in Phoenix was hitting the brakes, while the market in Santa Clara County was putting the pedal to the metal.

    Of course, a pay adjustment was part of the move. Cost of living is much higher in Santa Clara than in Arizona, so that was welcome (and my first pay raise in almost 8 years). The increase wasn’t really enough to absorb the increased costs of the region, but it is a welcome thing.

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  • 2014 in Reflection – the Move

    2014 in Reflection – the Move

    A lot has happened in 2014. Much chaos and drama, both work and personal related.

    Actually, before the beginning of 2014, we were informed of the decision to close the plant where we worked in Chandler Arizona, and the offer to relocate from the Phoenix area to the San Jose area was offered.

    Gulp.

    Not really a great choice to have to make. Sell our house in Chandler that we owned for less than 2 years, and move back to the Santa Clara Valley, or stay, get a 2 months severance, and have to find a job.

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  • Apartment Living – Laundry part deus

    Apartment Living – Laundry part deus

    Among all the joys of apartment living, not much ranks up there with the friendly competition for the laundry units. At 9:00AM you can practically see the residents lining up to steal the machines as soon as the time locks on the doors open. Hoo BOY!

    Today though, we will talk about the machines themselves. The washers are all HE (high efficiency) units. That means that you really don’t need much detergent to run a load.  Really, about 2 & 1/2 tablespoons of Tide or your detergent of choice is all that is needed for a large load. (in the photo above, the cup on the left is all you need for a full load, on the right is the “usual” detergent scoop)

    How wonderful is that?  Detergent lasts a long time, clothes get clean, and all is happy, right?

    Well, not so fast. It seems that the HE revolution is lost on all our neighbors, so continue to dump a cup or a cup and a half of detergent in each load.

    Not only is this a waste (and believe me, most of my neighbors would enjoy spending less on their detergent), but it leads to a nasty side effect.

    Namely, our clothes will smell like the perfume in the detergent last used. Ugh, heavy scent in all our loads, and worse yet, it seems to change.

  • An old friend

    An old friend

    My iPad that I bought in 2011, is nearing the end. Not that it isn’t still functional, but at near 4 years old, it is finally showing its age.

    I shouldn’t complain, nearly 4 years out of any tech gadget is a remarkable feat, and a testament to Apple’s quality and standards. My iPad, a generation 2 unit, is showing its age. When iOS 7 came out I dithered about upgrading, knowing that some of the features wouldn’t work and be disabled, but it was a worthy upgrade.

    Until early in 2014, Apple kept the core hardware in the generation 2 iPad alive, as it was the entry level iPad. It still had a strong use in educational and corporate markets. And to be quite frank, for applications that are written to its spec hardware, it is still a good performer.

    The battery life is quite good still, easily allowing a full day of heavy use (video watching, surfing, and email) without straining a charge, and the 3G cellular connection, while not as snappy as the newer 4G LTE connection, is just fine for email and casual on the go surfing.

    But with the release of iOS 8, and all the groovy integrations with the iPhone, and the new Mac OS X, the recommendation is to not upgrade the well aged iPad 2. iOS 8 is just too taxing on this hardware. The responsiveness suffers, and it is just painful.

    But time goes on. I will continue to use it, but alas, it will not get updates for security issues. And more and more of the applications that get updated will begin to run more poorly on this tablet.

    It has been a faithful friend, a road warrior, a great e-reader, and still a fun platform to play games like Plants versus Zombies. I am sure I will replace it in the coming year, but for now, it will be a companion.