Sheep Guarding Llama

I slept in a lot this morning.  This happened because, miraculously, Liesl did not wake up.  Normally she is my little alarm clock always getting me up some time between seven and eight in the morning.  Today I woke up on my own at nine thirty and she was still asleep!  So I jumped out of bed and worked from home for forty-five minutes or so while I got ready and then ran into the office.  No traffic with which to contend when you go in this late which is nice.

This morning was spent talking to my bank in New York to see if they would be able to provide some of the financing for the house that we want to buy.  They were unsure but didn’t see it as being out of the question and they hope to have an answer for us in a day or two.

At lunch I picked up Souder and we went over to La Cima for the buffet which looked really good today – Mahi Mahi for a nice change.  We did a short lunch and I was back in the office on the early side.

I talked to my mortgage broker and we worked out some plans this afternoon.  It sounds like the mortgage won’t be too much of a problem as long as the bank in New York is okay with the other loan.  This is our first time intentionally purchasing an investment property so things work differently than we are used to and there is a learning curve, again.  Even though this is our fourth time buying a house, we still have a lot to learn.  It is funny that we have now bought and sold more houses than our real estate agent has!  Sort of funny, anyway.  I never thought of myself as a real estate person so I am surprised by myself attempting to invest in real estate.  It does make for an interesting change over traditional securities investing.

Work was pretty slow today which was great as it gave me time to get the financing all lined up and taken care of.  By the end of the day, around six, we got our official pre-approval on the mortgage so we are legally all set to proceed with an offer.  We don’t want to do that, though, until we have our other components lined up so this is just a first step and not a final one.  We are hopeful that the rest of the loan will get approved tomorrow.

After work I came home and Grey came over as he is in town from Denver for a few days and we all went out to dinner at Ruchi Palace which is very near our new home.  This is our first time going to Ruchi Palace and our first time getting Indian in Carrollton so we were excited to get to try it out.  They have dosa too, which is very cool.

Dinner was quite good.  They were slow and the food took forever but everything was fresh made for us and delicious.  The dosa was not as good as we used to get in South Brunswick, New Jersey which we really miss but it was good and we will be going back to get it often, I am sure.  Dominica was so desperate to get Indian that she ordered two dinners for herself in addition to the appetizers that we got!  She didn’t even get much past the first half of the first entree.  So we had a lot to bring home.  The curry that she got was some of the best that I had ever tried so I’m sure that we will be back here a lot and the price was pretty reasonable.

After dinner Souder came over to the house and he, Grey and I hung out until almost one in the morning.  We are all getting together for pasta night at La Cima tomorrow as well.

Liesl did not let me sleep in this morning so I was up at eight and took a little bit of time to listen to “Pirate Hunter”, a biography on the legendary Captain Kidd.  It is decently interesting.  There is a lot of stuff from the era of which I was not aware at all.  The book really helps to paint a picture of the colonies in the late seventeenth century which, as Americans, I feel that we learn very little about and is, in many ways, a very foreign world to us even though so much of the history took place right here beneath our feet.

I was looking at Zillow today and discovered that the house next to ours has dropped considerably in price.  I talked to Dominica about it and we seriously need to consider if that house would make a good investment or not.  Owning the house directly next to our own would be a very big deal.  There is value in that house that exists for us but does not exist for someone else – such as having the ability to control our own neighbours, make sure that the frontage is consistent between the houses, etc.  The ground on the east side of that house is owned by us and it is our responsibility to protect the foundation of that house by watering the foundation which is a weird circumstance in Texas.

So we decided that it would make sense for us to look seriously into possibly buying the neighbouring house.  It is extremely utilitarian to have another house right next door.  We could use that space for all kinds of different things.  Our hope is to rent it, obviously, in the short term.  In the long term it could remain a rental property or it could be an “in law” home in case my dad decides to move down to Texas (we know that Dominica’s parents, when they move to Texas, are not going to move next door to any of us and especially not next to those of us up in Dallas with the fewest grandkids) down the road.

So we called our real estate agent and set up a showing of the house.  Can’t hurt to look.  We have had our doubts as to whether or not the house is any good as we can’t really get very close to it due to it being all locked up and fenced off – there are literally just two windows exposed to the street and the entire rest of the house is fenced off so it is extremely private.

It was late afternoon by the time that we managed to get over to see the house for ourselves.  Once we did get there, the whole fifteen feet of walking that it required, we discovered that inside of the privacy fence was a very attractive patio area that would be absolutely perfect for a little cafe table and chairs.  It would be an awesome place to go for breakfast.  The living areas of the house are enclosed in an amazing amount of glass – the house that we always thought of as being so immensely private is actually enclosed in the fence because it is so dramatically exposed to the outside!

Inside the house seemed very spacious.  The house is built from the same components as our house but assembled in a completely different manner.  Instead of being a long channel of a house in a U shape with an atrium in the middle this house is very open without the atrium.  The house feels extremely open and quite a bit more modern than our much more 70s styled home.  Not so much our style as we really like our quirky house but this one is far, far nicer than we had imagined and it will be an amazing home for someone.  I can’t believe that it has been unable to sell for so long.  We have concerns about the foundation but there is nothing obvious at this point.

Overall, from what we could see, the house needs very little work.  It appears to be in overall great shape.  It has its issues, as all houses, especially foreclosures, do, but they are generally pretty minor from what we can see.  There is a wall that we would like to change, the kitchen cabinetry is a disaster and needs to be completely replaced, the kitchen floor is serviceable but could seriously use some updating and, of course, lots of paint needs to be applied liberally everywhere.  But no super large expenses or show-stopping items from what we could see.  We are surprisingly impressed and can’t figure out why this house has not sold already.

The yard is far nicer than we had anticipated too.  It is well maintained and far, far better than our own yard.  Now we can see what a yard in our area should look like.  What is really interesting is that this house has two independent back yards.  The main one that wraps around the kitchen and living rooms and then a tiny one that goes only behind the master bedroom suite.  Very strange but pretty neat.

So we are seriously considering the house.  It seems like potentially a really good idea.

This evening Brian and Nicki came up to look at the house too.  Nicki is really interested in renting the house from us so we wanted her to get a good look at it to see what she thought before we really considered moving forward on it at all.  She really liked it, though, so it is very possible that we will be able to get it.  The plan is to talk to the bank tomorrow and see what can be done.

Before heading off to bed we discovered that someone had stepped in dog poo and that there was a huge mess on the floor.  I spent over an hour down on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor trying to get it clean.  By the time that I was done the floor was probably cleaner than before it was made such a mess.  It kept me from going to bed as early as I had hoped, though.

Tomorrow is going to be a big day as we look into our finances and see what can be done.  We are hopeful that we might even be able to make an offer on the house tomorrow but that is moving very quickly.  It is going to be an exciting week for us for sure.  And a tough one.  Big financial decisions are both exciting and exhausting.

I got up at eight this morning.  Dominica and Liesl were up just minutes after me.  Liesl immediately demanded breakfast (S’mores Poptarts) and to watch Blues’ Clues which she has started getting into since having been in Frankfort for Christmas.

My first project this morning was to do some additional carpet cleaning in the living room where, no matter how hard we try, there seem to be an unlimited number of lingering floor stains from the previous home owners.

Souder’s schedule got thrown off this morning so he is not coming over to work on the wiring.  Dominica settled into the living room to play some Sims this morning.  I worked on light stuff like SGL, some forum posts, installing Xen Cloud Platform to test it out, etc.

Liesl manage to talk on the phone for the first time today.  Sure she had held the phone, maybe said a few words, listened to people before but today was the first time that she immediately took the phone from Dominica, said “Hello grandpa” and told him about the drink of water that she had just got and that she had to go watch more of Blues Clues.  She wasn’t shy and immediately just talked on the phone at an appropriate volume.  A major breakthrough!

Liesl decided that today was a day off from playing and that she was going to watch Blues Clues all day.  She doesn’t often watch very much television anymore so her taking a day to really spend in from of the television doesn’t seem so bad.  She likes to spend time on her own just playing in our bedroom with her shows on from Netflix.  It is amazing how good she is at entertaining herself.  We sometimes forget about her for hours at a time because she goes off somewhere and just plays quietly with her Little People, her plastic animals or some other toy.  She is so funny.  During the day when Dominica is in the living room Liesl will often go into our bedroom and in the evenings when we often like to watch shows in our bedroom (on the only television in the house) Liesl likes to go into the living room to play quietly on her own and just stops in every hour or so to check in on us.  Just to make sure that we haven’t left or something, I guess.

Overall today was a productive day.  The house is looking better and better.  There is a long way to go but we are slowly marching forward.

I took a little bit of time while Liesl was sleeping to play Oblivion.  I only got to play for about an hour but it was enough time for me to knock out one dungeon at least.  I’m getting a bit burnt out on the game.  It just keeps going on and on and, thus far, the storylines in the Shivering Isles are not very engaging.  It makes it harder to make consistent progress through this part of the game.

Dominica decided, much like Liesl, that today was a video game day and she spent the day addicted to playing The Sims 3.  She is really far into the game at this point.

This evening, before going to bed, Dominica and I watched some of Michael Palin’s “New Europe” from the BBC.  It is the television show made in conjunction with the book that I just finished reading this morning.  It is not as good as Rick Steve’s Europe or anything like that but it is interesting and gives a good view of lots of parts of Europe that I know very little about.

This morning, after finishing “New Europe”, I began reading / listening to the biography of Captain Kidd which, thus far, has proven to be really interesting.

I recently learned that A&E, the cable television network, is proposing a new reality television series called “Stain Hunters.”  The show would follow the misadventures of a group of professional maids (think Merry Maids) as they scour Chicago or St. Louis searching for the worst possible stains, miscolorations, smells, etc. in carpeting, furniture, clothes, bathrooms, etc.

This follows on the successful franchises in a similar vein where specialists descend on a home to clear out accumulated junk, to pawn their earthly belongings to support a gambling habit, where organizational managers help people red up their homes, where home specialists slap paint onto cheap wood assemblages to make it look passably elegant on standard definition teleivions or where dumpster divers look for lost treasure. This is sure to be a moderate hit surviving at least two to three seasons and will fit comfortably in the existing lineup.  “Stain Hunters” will include a closing tip each episode on ways to either avoid stains or a “secret” insider, pro tip as how to get out a particular type of stain.

You think I’m kidding.  You’re pretty sure.  But you’re not totally sure.  Are you?

We slept in until around nine this morning.  That was some good sleep.  We often don’t get very much so getting a bit more than eight hours was awesome.  I feel great today.  And we have water and the weather is nice too.

We set to work cleaning the house first thing.  That and I had some work that needed to be done for the office.  So I spent about an hour or so working for the office and all morning cleaning whenever possible.  We put tons of stuff away, got the kitchen all spiffied up, vacuumed and more.  We needed some snacks for the crew later on today so Dominica ran to Walmart and did some shopping with Liesl allowing me to keep cleaning at the house which worked out pretty well.

The house is really looking great.  This is the best that it has looked since we first moved in.  We still have boxes piled up in the living room but there is nothing that we can do about that, I don’t think, until we get the garage conversion completed.  Which demonstrates why that needs to be a priority for sure.

Brian Souder arrived a few minutes after one and the rest of the crew started trickling in at around one thirty.  We had Brian S., Brian W., Jen, Maggie, Dominica and I as well as Maggie’s daughter and her friend who were hanging out too.  We hooked the girls up with Liesl and the PS3 with over five hundred movies available on the house server so they were pretty well entertained with that.  Liesl thought that having the two older girls at her disposal all day was awesome.  She had a great time and it worked out really well that we basically had babysitters all afternoon.  Liesl was thrilled and didn’t complain at all – unless one of the girls wanted to abandon her and go use the bathroom or something crazy like that.

One of the cutest things ever was walking in to check on the girls and finding Liesl lying on the bed with her head on her hands over the side of the bed watching the television.  She looked just like a little version of a bored tween.  It was hilarious.  She is so growing up.

The meeting went well today and seemed to be really productive.  I think that everyone is enjoying being able to get together like this.  It is a good use of time.  Having the soda, chips, veggie tray and Walmart fresh made pizzas to pop into the oven worked really well.  It was cheap and very tasty and easy to do.  No big issues attempting to coordinate food for everyone partway through the afternoon.

We went until around seven then everyone headed for home.  Dominica made sausage and peppers again for dinner.  We have finally found potato rolls here in Texas which makes all of the difference between bland, tasteless sausage and peppers that I could take or leave and the meal that I love.

Now that the water is back on and we are into a house of our own, we are making a real effort to eat healthily at home drastically more.  It really does not save very much money.  It does save the tip and tax and most of the cost of driving someplace but the actual cost of food is pretty much a break even, I think.  So it might be a twenty five percent cost savings, in my quick estimation, but it does save a lot of time in the evenings as going out just takes forever.  The downside is that it means that Dominica has to do all of that work to make the meals and then there are all of those dishes to clean up.  It is amazing how much work is actually generated by the creation of one meal.  Oreo very much appreciated us eating at home more.  Otherwise he is left home alone while we go out.

After we ate I spent a while showing Brian, via join.me – LogMeIn’s screen sharing service, how to do a complete install of WordPress on Rackspace CloudSites.  That took at least an hour, maybe as much as two.  While I was doing that both Liesl and Dominica went to bed and were asleep by the time that I was off of the phone.  So at around eleven I went to bed and listened to some more of my book New Europe by Michael Palin which I have nearly completed.  It is a travelogue of his time touring the nations of eastern and central Europe that, until somewhat recently, fell behind the Iron Curtain.  Today the Iron Curtain era seems long ago and far away and Liesl will see it much like I see the Korean War to my parents (they were alive but it seems so long ago and so irrelevant) but the countries that fell behind it are still early in their phases of reconstruction.  The book is far from my favourite travelogue and it fails to tell stories in the way that I often prefer them but it is informative and interesting and nearly everyplace in it is one where I would like to visit.

So it was just after midnight when I fell asleep.  Brian is planning on coming over in the morning to look at doing some additional network cabling in the house.  The next room up on the list is the master bedroom where the PS3, XBOX 360 and AppleTV all need to be plugged in to the network.  We had tried using the PS3’s wireless capability for a few weeks but it was horrible.  Even with the Apple AirPort Extreme right across the hall the speeds that it was getting weren’t enough to play Netflix reliably and not enough to even begin to watch something streamed at higher rates inside of the house.  So we resorted to stringing a cable across the hall from my office / the nursery into our bedroom which is somewhat dangerous and definitely an eye soar.  Plus it uses up the only available network port left on my AirPort.

The plan is to have all of the house connect back to a central cabling plant in the garage.  There my twenty four port Netgear GigE “Smart” switch (managed but not managed via SNMP) will do the trick of consolidating all of the traffic rather than having it split out to a couple of low end, very small home switches like it is at the moment.