We have found a home we liked, placed an offer, and to our surprise, won the bidding. Woot. Now closing day is 10 days away, and it is time to reflect on how nice it will be to have a house again. Some of the downsides to apartment living will be lifted. Having a pantry – As a former chef, and someone who enjoys cooking, the worst aspect of apartment living is the limited space for storage...
Our timing was impeccable. All through the last year, the housing market in Phoenix was literally on fire. Values were rising, houses were flying off the shelf, and we saw that our home had some serious appreciation. Then we put it on the market. SLAM that door shut. Suddenly inventory went from less than 4 weeks to more than 6 months, and it turned from a seller’s market to a buyer’s...
Well, it is technically a “welcome back”, as I grew up here in Silicon Valley. My job relocated us to Santa Clara, and over the last week, we made the “move“. The positive is that the movers rocked, and really got our stuff packed and loaded in record time. After spending the weekend on a leisurely drive from Phoenix to Santa Clara (via the Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, and Lake...
There are many reasons to hate the process of selling. The last time I had to relocate, we moved up front, and left an empty house. Get it cleaned, and let the agents have free reign. This time, we have to sell before we move. This is much harder to accomplish. #1 Select a realtor There are literally thousands of realtors in any major metropolitan area. We are fortunate that we had to choose one...
More on the saga so far. This week we spent three days crawling around neighborhoods looking for places that fit the criteria: They are livable – as in, we can walk our dogs in the evening without fear for our lives. We can afford it – We do have an upper limit to what is affordable, after all. I don’t have early Facebook equity. The commute doesn’t completely suck –...
Moving from Phoenix to San Jose is going to be an eye opener. We currently have almost 2,400 sqft of house, not counting the garage. We will be lucky to have half that here (for 2.5x the price). I am already thinking about what will have to go. A lot of what I have packed in my garage is going to get nuked. It has mostly sat in a box, so I am not going to miss it. My CD’s might get sold...
This week I am in San Jose/South Bay to “preview” prior to deciding to relocate. Since I spent the first 38 years of my life here, I don’t need much pre-viewing, so we are hitting likely locations to live. So far, I have pretty much dismissed the far south bay. Morgan Hill and Gilroy, while they are near and served by Caltrain, are just too damn far. I last lived at the north...
Hell has frozen over, and it looks like I am going to be relocating back to the Silicon Valley. I left there in 2003 to take a job in Tucson that I liked, and came to enjoy much of what Arizona offers. A couple times I flirted with going back, including a very tempting job offer. As we head out to “preview” the south bay, I would like to take a few minutes to reflect on some of the...
In 2012, I joined a great company, a cool place to work, and a true leader in Scientific instrumentation. Not quite a dream come true but a good move, particularly at this stage of my career. Things had been going well, then the Friday before the Thanksgiving week, the bombshell fell. All manufacturing of our products will move to Malaysia (where we have been manufacturing since 1974), and thus...
So, after a brief support interaction with my new hosting company, A Small Orange hosting is who I went with, and I haven’t been disappointed, I am up and life is good. I have learned how to use cPanel, and its companion WHM. Really slick tools, and really easy to use. I now have 4 domains setup, and have 3 more to move, and four subdomains. I have learnt a few things: WordPress is really...