A Scattered Brain

Second verse, same as the first?

Well, not exactly, but close enough.  I’ve decided that Houston doesn’t like me.  Yesterday, I had another client in Houston that I had to fly out to meet with.  I scheduled the same flights as before so that I could do all of my travel in one day.  Last time, if you recall, my flight was stranded mid-air and we were diverted to Austin and I missed my meeting and flew straight home as soon as I finally landed in Houston.  This experience wasn’t quite that bad, but it wasn’t good either.

The flight from Vegas to Houston was uneventful and we even arrived a little early.  Great.  I was able to meet up with my co-worker and we got to the meeting and the meeting went well.  Great.  Afterward, got to have Chick-Fil-A to eat.  AWESOME!!! Highlight of the day!  Got to the airport to fly home… and this is where the story unravels once again.

My plane was supposed to leave around 6:44 pm CDT and arrive in Vegas at 7:52 PDT.  I would have gotten home before 9:00 easily and still had some time to relax before bed.  Around 6:30, we hadn’t boarded yet and they finally changed the departure time from 6:44 to 7:16.   Not a big deal, that happens.  We board the plane and after everyone is on and they’ve closed the door, we get an announcement.  “Thank you for flying with us, we’ll be at the gate here for 30 minutes or so.”  Upsetting but whatever.  30 minutes pass by and the voice comes over, (using valley girl paraphrasing from our captain) “Umm, yeah, like there are 4 planes behind us blocking us in so, like, we’ll be another 30 minutes here.  Y’all can use your cell phones if you want to call anyone… oh and by the way, once we pull from the gate, we’ll taxi for about another hour before we take off, there were like, awesome storms that came through.  Totally cool, huh?”

About 45 minutes later we push from the gate and get the message (no paraphrasing). “Greetings from the flight deck, we’ve pushed from the gate.  You can probably feel us moving now.  It’ll still be about an hour before we take off as there are a lot of flights ahead of us due to the storm that passed by.”  That’s great, come on the speaker just AFTER we start moving to tell us we’re moving.  Our captain was a real winner, I think she liked the sound of her voice on the PA.

Now we’re on taxi and again the captain comes online and says, “If you’re on the left side of the plane you can probably see the really long line of planes we’re behind and that magnificent storm in the distance.”  I don’t care.  We’re on the taxi with the engines off, it doesn’t really matter how many planes are ahead of us.

30 minutes later, still on the taxi, the captain graces us with her presence again, “I’ve been asked to move the plane up so I’m going to start the engines and move.”  Did we really need to hear that?  Come on.  Around this time, almost 2 hours of sitting on the plane, they come around and offer a glass of water.  Great customer service.  Couldn’t they have at least run some programming on the TV’s during this wait; or even better not board the darn plane until we could have pushed away.  Continental’s customer service leaves much to be desired from my last two experiences.  It’s one thing to have delays, but the way the staff handles them could make things much more bearable.  Continental gets a D for service.

40 minutes later we’re taking off and I seriously hear clapping behind me.  What the ??? You’re clapping because we’re taking off 2 and a half hours late?  What an accomplishment!  As we’re just getting airborne, the flight attendant comes on and says, “Thanks for handling the short delay, we appreciate your business.”  Short delay, as if to say it could have been worse; which yes, it could have, but don’t try to placate me by pointing that out.  We took off around the time I should have been landing in Vegas.

The flight was uneventful from that point and I got home around 11:00.  Missed the entire Celtics game and any reasonable time with Kylah before bed.  Houston just doesn’t like me apparently.

I’m sure that when the time comes to fly again to Houston, I’ll be able to complete a saga.  Stay tuned!

So now comes the final chapter in our house hunting adventure… we finally moved in yesterday.  There were issues with worry all the way up until last Friday when things finally recorded.  Title was still working on some money issues due to a rate lock extension and the seller had forgotten to sign some documents but those all got worked out in the nick of time.

Originally, our plan was to rent a truck and move ourselves.  We had thought about hiring movers but decided against it.  Last week we changed our mind and did hire some movers… boy was that the smart thing.  Without them there is no chance we would have gotten everything over in one day.  No chance.

Even with the movers, Kylah and I were busy moving smaller stuff and keeping things organized.  Connor and Grandpa spent the day together hanging out at the houses.  Grandpa was amazing to keep company with Connor and Connor was just the bestest little boy in the world.  He took one nap in his stroller after he had been up for 5 hours and didn’t complain at all.  His second nap was in the new house just as soon as we got the crib and even though it was a new house and totally new environment, he went down like a champ!  I couldn’t have been any prouder.

There are still some outstanding issues.  We are getting our RO system serviced and Cable phone installed today.  We will need to get garage door openers and a mail key.  With bank repos, many of those types of items get lost in the shuffle and it is up to the new owners to correct.  Something we’ll take care of soon but at least we are all moved in.

Overall, we are over a major hump and that is very satisfying.  The new house already seems to fit us well and I’m excited to be there for many years to come.

So after the last two months of looking, submitting offers, waiting on very slow banks, and a lot of headache and frustration; we finally signed our paperwork yesterday afternoon.  We still have to wait a bit for (you guessed it) the bank to sign their part but it looks to be a done deal.

Our original plan had us moving today but that can’t happen so now we’ll look to move near the beginning of June.  Hopefully nothing more will hold this up.  Once we move we can more aggressively market our current house for rent or sale.

I’ll be so glad when this is all over.  I really thought the buying process would have been easier this time than last.  It wasn’t… different headaches, but still headaches one after another.

Greetings all.  Major things have started going with the new house.  The bank finally signed documents and we are in escrow.  All that is left in the air is how fast we can close and fixing one (hopefully minor) plumbing issue with the kitchen sink and hot water.  We hope to have that resolved today and all can continue.

Our closing date isn’t known yet, but should be no later than May 19th.  I’d like to close any time next week if title and loan documents can be ready by then.  Then we can quickly transfer utilities, buy appliances and move in!!  Once we move in, we’ll thoroughly clean our current house and touch up paint here and there.  If we can be fully moved before a business trip I have at the end of May, I’ll be ecstatic!  Things are finally starting to come along which is great.

Personal Note to the J: My excitement is back and you can be excited to look for your own house once again.

I went through a McDonald’s drive through for breakfast yesterday and I saw a very intriguing sign for a new sandwich: the Southern Style Chicken Sandwich.  On first glance it looks strikingly similar to my beloved Chick-Fil-A.  I looked it up and all of the press information confirmed my suspicion that this sandwich was created to directly compete with CFA.  I decided that we would come back here later for dinner to try it.  I knew it could never replace CFA, but if it was at least close enough to substitute from time to time I’d be happy.

I told my wife about it and she agreed we could go there for dinner.  Pulled up to the drive through and ordered 4 sandwiches, 2 with pickle (for her), and 2 without (for me).  They told us it would take about 6 minutes to cook up (must not be a big seller if they cook it to order).  We pull around to the parking lot and about 10 minutes later our food comes out.  Now for the taste test and results.

First, my wife loved it.  She thought it was a terrific sandwich and close to the original and for her would certainly work as a substitute.  For me, not nearly close enough.  Even though the sandwich has no pickles, they use dill juice as part of their seasoning because the whole sandwich had strong dill flavor to me.  I think this is probably because McD’s uses lower quality pickles and wanted to supplement that flavor.  Ok, if you like the pickle flavor.  Beyond the dill, the breading wasn’t nearly the fullness that CFA provides and fairly plain.  The chicken itself was tender white meat and did compare to CFA.

So, my wait for a Chick-Fil-A to come to Vegas will still be met without any substitutes; although I’m truly happy that it will work for my wife and I can find other things at McD’s if she is ever craving a Southern Style Chicken Sandwich.

It has been nearly two weeks since we sent our signed forms back to the bank with their addendums.  We are still waiting for them to sign to be able to start our inspections and get moving toward closing.  It seems strange that a bank wanting to get rid of a property is waiting so long to sign the paperwork and keep the process moving.  We’re told that the house is still ours and they are not entertaining any other offers.  This could be just lip service, but without any indication otherwise has to be taken at face value.  We have gone forward and ordered the appraisal which should have taken (or will be) place today.  I’m not concerned about this appraisal coming in at where we need it to but still want to see the report regardless.

At this point, there is nearly no way to close in April, which may or may not be advantageous to us in the long run as there are other setbacks we will have to work through.  Mainly, there are still many questions about the current house and the refinance of the property.  We will have to look at all of our options and make some decisions.  I am intentionally vague at this point since we have a lot to work through at this point.  I know everything will work out, it is just a matter of how.

I will continue to periodically post updates with everything and once we know a plan for the current house, moving, etc. I will let you all know.  Take care and have a great week!

On to chapter two of the house hunting process - the bids. Two things we wanted to avoid this time around were having to bid on multiple houses and bidding wars. We are 0 for 2. After nearly a month of looking, we found a house we really liked. It was one of the 3 mentioned in the previous point. I will leave exact amounts out for obvious reasons, but here was the exchange between us and the bank summed up:

• House listed at $$$
• We offer a bid of $$$ - 20 asking the seller to also pay closing costs
• They come back with $$$ + 5. Yes, they countered with a price of 5 more than their list price.
• We laughed and walked away

That house was at the cusp of our spending desire anyway so if the bank had come back with something close it could have been a hard decision. At least this way it was very easy to walk away.

We went our looking again this past Tuesday but only at three houses. The first one was awesome and we thought we would like to make a play at it. We found out that there were already multiple offers so if we were to throw ourselves into the mix, we would have to come in above list price. The list price was pretty low considering the house so we kept it in mind. The next two houses (one with the same floor plan) both left us wanting; the one with the same floor plan was trashed and more expensive, the other was too close to a major highway and you could hear the traffic. That was a shame, too, because outside of that the area was quite nice.

We decided we would make a play for that first house. We started by offering list + a little more.  The bank came back with a blanket counter to all offers: withdraw, keep the same, or try to sweeten a little.  We didn’t want this going on forever, but we decided to offer a touch more to show we were serious about the property.

It worked!  The house is ours.  Now starts the long list of things to do to get that house to close, move, and get this house ready and rented.  It will be an exciting couple of months!

Greetings and salutations to all of my loyal fans (I think I may have 3 or 4 out there),

The last month has been quite interesting as we take on a new adventure; finding a new house. Nearly 4 years ago, we went through this exercise in an extreme seller’s market and bought a small house at a high price. We’ve have spent some time and money and have turned it into a home that we truly enjoy now.

But the market has changed qute a bit now. With all of the sub-prime mortgage woes, the market here has drastically shifted from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market and there are good deals all around. We are in a position to at least look into these deals to see if any work for us. Overall, so far we’ve scoped out about 25 or 30 houses over about a month. We were starting to get a little discouraged since we couldn’t find a good match between floor plan and location yet.

We are going to be very picky this time. Since we don’t have a need to move at all, if we’re going to, the house has to be nearly perfect for what we want. Most of the houses available in our price range and area are bank repos; which are very much a crap shoot. People can get angry when they are losing their house and often times ruin carpet, walls, and even smash in doors among other items in the house. Our budget is such that either a house has to be VERY cheap where we can spend some money to fix things up or has to be in great condition that won’t need much work. Until yesterday, there had only been two houses that were remotely possible and neither were perfect.

Yesterday some of that may have changed. We went to see around 7 houses and 3 of them were possibilities. The first is quite cheap and needs all new flooring and paint, but the floor plan is spacious and I could picture us living there. The 2nd was a nice house with an owner still occupying so they probably wouldn’t come down into our price range. The third is nearly perfect! Great house (over 2600 sq ft.) in a very nice neighborhood. The price is a touch out of reach but since it is a repo, we may be able to negotiate. Seeing this 3rd house trumped the 2nd so we are currently looking into putting an offer on one of these 2. We will go back today to get a better look at the non fixer-upper and if it is something we still like, we will write up an offer and see where it goes.

Overall, this is a much better situation since we are much more in control and aren’t in a matter of need like before. I’ll keep you posted if we offer on either of these houses or as more viewings come along. Take care, all!

Wow! I’ve traveled more in February than I ever have in the past. Three trips in three weeks (the first two already documented below). This last and final trip was to Elekta’s Atlanta headquarters for a Project Manager’s meeting. The meetings went well and were worth the time in general. Whether we needed to have them during the middle of 4th quarter (by far our busiest team) but now I am back in the office for the foreseeable future and ready to hit the ground running.

One very good thing is during my time in Atlanta, I was able to have some Chick-Fil-A! It was as good as always and I would have really been upset to go to Atlanta and not have some Chick-Fil-A.

I’m finding that travel really takes all of your energy in general. All of the trips have been short (1, 2, and 3 days) which makes for a lot of flying time in a short period and I’m worn out. Getting sick in the middle didn’t help either and I felt hopeless while away and having the rest of the family sick as well. We’re all getting better so it looks like we’ve turned the corner.

On a different front, I will soon be announcing the launch of the Stanton family web site. I’ve found a good content management system to use and have started to build some pages. I hope to officially debut it during the first week of March.

Take care everyone and have a great weekend!

A semi-live blogging event.

Here was how yesterday was supposed to go:

• 4:00 AM PST - Get up and head to the airport.
• 6:40 AM PST - Fly to Houston and arrive around 11:35 AM CST.
• 1:00 PM CST - Attend Kick Off Meeting with a client.
• 3:00 PM CST - Conclude meeting and head back to George H. W. Bush Intercontinental Airport (that has to be the longest name for an airport around) .
• 6:30 PM CST - Fly back home to Vegas.
• 7:30 PM PST- Arrive in Vegas and go home.

This would have made for a quite long day with about 10 hours of travel for a 2 hour meeting. If only it could have happened that way.

Now for the real story:

• Throughout the night - Wife and baby were sick with colds and fever. We all had rough nights sleeping.
• 4:20 AM PST - Got up and went to the airport.
• 6:40 AM PST - Fly to Houston… so far so good.
• 11:00 AM CST - Announcement overhead stating that there are storms in Houston and we have been requested to hold over San Antonio for about 30 minutes. No big deal at this point. I’ll still have time to meet my colleague and get to the meeting.
• 12:00 PM CST - Announcement overhead stating that we have been requested to hold for an additional 30 minutes. This makes things really tight but ok. Ah, but the message wasn’t over. After a brief pause, the pilot announced that we don’t have the fuel to stay up for another delay and we are going to land in Austin. Day ruined.
• 12:30 PM CST - Land in Austin. Call work colleague and tell him I won’t make the meeting. He had already seen the re-route and was ready to go by himself. While we are waiting on the tarmac to get refueled, I was able to call home and found out my wife was going to take our son to the doctor for his cold. I really hoped all was well and couldn’t stop thinking about them. If I had known that this would have happened, I could have stayed home and taken care of them rather than fly half way across the country and back (dressed up nicely at that).
• 2:00 PM CST - Get in line to take off to Houston. Decided to start writing this out on paper to pass the time. I’ve had nothing to eat or drink today, not even water.
• 2:10 PM CST - Announcement that we will be able to take off at 2:40. Not holding my breath.
• 2:53 PM CST- We have liftoff! Should be 31 minutes to Houston.
• 3:35 PM CST - Touchdown! At this point, at least I’ve had one small glass of ice water. My plan was to eat at the airport and then try to find my way back home.
• 4:00 PM CST - I look on the flight board and see a 4:10 flight back to Vegas. I don’t think I can make it in time but I also don’t see any other Vegas flights on the board (including my scheduled flight) so I skip food and try to make this flight. SUCCESS! I’m on my way back home, even if without food.
• 4:35 PM CST - I’m in the air and heading home. I am so hungry I could eat a horse. Not sure exactly when I’ll get home but I’m glad this long ordeal is almost over. I watch Gladiator to pass the time.

I made it home around 6:00 PM with Burger King in hand. Such a long day with no real purpose. I’m glad it’s over.

NOTE: My apologies for the inconsistency regarding time (sometimes using present tense sometimes past tense). I knew I was switching back and forth but don’t want to worry about fixing it.