A Street
Downtown
That was my favorite street sign in the Bay Area. But I think the one below, which I snapped this weekend on the way back from Mount Hood with the girls and their two little ones takes the cake.
…is always 30 minutes late, give or take. Why don’t they just change the schedule to reflect that it takes 4 hours? Then they’d be early sometimes.
The inspection on Wednesday was fascinating: Faren West, the inspector, was incredibly thorough, right down to finding the rats in the attic. The tally:
I requested that the broken window pane be replaced, the broken window springs be repaired, and the leak on the tub fixed. The tub was the big one–Faren warned that there’s a slim chance the entire tub would need to be replaced.
The owners agreed to repair the broken window springs and have a plumber look at the tub. They’re issuing a credit for the broken window pane. I’m worried about the credit for that: I doubt it’ll be sufficient, but I can’t prove otherwise.
As to the other stuff, I’m thinking of having the bedroom radiator removed and a theromstat-controlled electric heater installed in the wall between the bedroom and the bathroom, so I’ll need to have the floor repaired anyway.
I’ll have the hose to the dishwasher fixed when I have a garbage disposal put in, so that’s not a big deal, either.
The good news is that someone re-wired the entire place a few years ago. There’s a home-owner’s assocation rule that one can not use bulbs greater than 60 watts. But it doesn’t apply to my new wiring!
I saw one last unit before the inspection. It was larger than the one I’m buying, and southwest leaning west, rather than southwest leaning south. It didn’t have a dishwasher, but it had lots more closet space and even a little nook for my diner booth. But I can’t live without a dishwasher, and I don’t need more space for junk. Less is better.
We’re on our way.
I woke up to snow this morning. It was beautiful. I sat in Bauhaus from 7am on, working, watching the snow fall around the Space Needle and the Olympic Mountains across Puget Sound. OK, I couldn’t see the Olympics, but I knew they were there.
With snow, I had an excuse to work from home today. Tomorrow, I won’t go in until late afternoon. Monday meeting went well. I drove it like I drove Java PM meetings at Oracle. Boss agreed to final, minor changes to my marketing plan, and complimented my work. Yeah, he still thinks I can execute on the unexecutable. But we have a lot more time left to play this game.
I always feel better after a couple of days. And Tuesdays are always better, somehow.
Today was my first meeting with the product team where that one individual didn’t make any disparaging remarks. OK, not true. It’s just that the disparaging remarks were directed at someone not in the room with us, instead of me. Which is a distinct improvement.
We’ll see if this keeps up.
Five+ months at Microsoft. I haven’t worked this hard since I came within a day of billing 300 hours one month at MoFo. I learned that month that more hours just led to more pain in my wrists.
There’s no end in sight here. My wrists hold up better, because I’m forcing myself to use voice recognition software. But there’s no end in sight to the hours. Every evening. Half of my weekends. A product team that does nothing but complain about the two years’ worth of work I have been unable to complete these past five months. A manager who means well, but is so overworked, he can’t provide me sufficient air cover or help me control my workload. In fact, he just seems to want to add more on top.
The other half of my weekends I lose to a complete lack of energy after the previous six days of working without rest. I don’t call old friends back on those days, because I know I’ll just whine. Hell, I’m so drained I still haven’t bought a birthday present for my nephew or my sister-in-law. Only a few days left.
I’m beginning to think this was a mistake.
No. It’s not. It wasn’t.
I’ll feel better Tuesday, I’m sure. I’m just in the umpteenth draft of my marketing plan, which my boss wants me to expand to unexecutable levels so he can argue for more headcount and build his empire. But at this point, the time I waste on planning programs I can’t possibly execute just means time away from programs the product team is expecting me to execute. Meaning more disprespectful remarks from one fellow on the product team.
I’ll feel better on Tuesday, I’m sure. The thrill of searching for a new home has passed. Now, I just have the reality of the financial committment, the inevitable second-guessing of my choices, knowing I’ll have to pack and unpack again when I really just need to work.
I’ll feel better on Tuesday, I’m sure. I have a regular Monday meeting with the product team. These meetings weren’t going so well in November and December (we haven’t met since before Christmas), and I’ve come to view them with a sense of dread, knowing I’ll have more disprespectful remarks from one fellow on the product team. That meeting drags me down every Sunday.
I’ll feel better Tuesday, I’m sure. It’s just that I had a budding relationship nipped in the bud today. The chemistry thing again. My penchant to appear stand-offish and cold as I slowly begin to trust someone. I can’t change myself, I’ve tried, but it’s so hard to find someone who has the patience to wait for my walls to break down. This is really what’s bugging me, I guess.
I’ll feel better Tuesday. I’ll feel better after Duncan and I start executing our evil plan involving the 500 smiley-face superballs I recently purchased. I’ll feel better after the inevitable agony of another meeting with the product team has passed. I’ll feel better after seeing the condo I want to purchase on Wednesday. I’ll feel better after I clean up the mess my apartment has become.
I always feel better after a couple of days. Just a couple of bad days. It’ll pass.
The sellers wanted to push back the closing date from 13-FEB-07 to 21-FEB-07. I said they could push it back even further, provided the purchase price was lowered based on my costs to lock-in a mortgage rate. In other words, the longer my rate is locked, the higher my rate. To get to the 6.125% for a 30 day lock, I would pay for points: 35 days would cost $145, 60 days $850.
I thought offering them this level of flexibility would be welcome–they haven’t found a home, and we’re only talking about a couple hundred bucks. Much to my surprise, they said thanks but no thanks.
The clock is ticking now. Inspections and appraisals next week.
The owners of my new home accepted my offer. I think they were a little taken aback by the speed of my offer, however–their place was only on the market two days, and it sounds like they haven’t even looked at any new homes.
They also insisted that the chandelier in the bedroom must come with them. If they’d claimed the leaded-glass door, I’d walk away. But the chandelier? If they DON’T take that, I’m walking away.
