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Wednesday the 13th

We got up at 5:30 this morning to go to the YMCA (The best time for lap swimming is between 5 and 7 AM.) When Donna went to turn on the bathroom light, it didn’t come on. She used the hallway light as a guide to do her stuff. When I went in I thought it might be a burnt out bulb, but when I tried to turn on something we had plugged into the outlets where the switch was, it wouldn’t come on either. We headed off to the the Y and I’d further troubleshoot when we got back.

The poor Mini has to sit outside uncovered and that means before we can go anywhere, the windows have to be cleared of dew or frost each morning. This morning it was frost on one side and dew on the other, with the windshield it was dew that turned to frost when swiped… We got underway fine, buy a half mile or so down the road the Mini started to hesitate when I shifted. While waiting on the next stoplight to turn green the idle became sort of rough. Accelerating away and shifting into second it bogged down a bit and a giant yellow half-filled check engine light popped up in the middle of the tach. The car ran OK the rest of the way with an occasional hesitation on the 1-2 shift. On the way home it ran mostly better, but still not perfect and the light stayed off.

When we got back to the AirBnB we discovered that not only was the bathroom effected, but every kitchen outlet was not working. Including the one for the refrigerator! So we frantically texted the owner (we had his number because we had been in contact before to repair the dishwasher and fix the very annoying sticky front door.) We also messaged via the AirBnB app the host. After about 45 minutes we started getting calls, texts and messages about our issue. Eventually the owner showed up around 9 AM to start trying to solve our issue. He tried flipping breakers on and off. He tried shutting off the main breaker and turning it back on with little success. We left him physically swapping breakers around inside the box as we had that other bug-a-boo to deal with.

I had gotten a Mini service place recommendation from a fellow Y member just the other day and when I called them they said they could read the code, but wouldn’t be able to do anything today because they were slammed. So we headed over there to see what was going on. The Mini on the way over was doing well under a mile or so from our destination when it was running crummy and the half-filled light came back on. They ran the code and it came back as P0302, cylinder #2 misfire. They asked if I wanted to set up an appointment, went I said yes, they asked how about next Tuesday. Uh, OK.

It really wasn’t OK, we were planning on leaving Thursday morning to go up to Granite Falls, WA to visit the Morrison clan. Having already cancelled on them once because of the house buying stuff, we decided not to repeat it. Solution, rent a car, there is an Enterprise office in town, so we headed there after the car repair place. Bad news there too, they didn’t have any cars to rent. The good news was that they were expecting some returns by 5:00 PM, so they entered our info and said they’d give us a call.

Returning to our home away from home, we found our landlord/owner just finishing up. He finally figured out the issue, a previous tenant had decided to keep his stereo equipment in the hall closet and as a precaution he had replaced the normal outlet in there with a GFCI one and for some unknown reason it had tripped.

For the trifecta of bad news all we needed now was the the owner of our prospective house to turn down our counter offer to return some money at closing so we care afford a new roof for her old place. Sure enough around 4:00 PM our realtor emailed to say that it was a no-go. At this point we both thought maybe this was the universe telling us it was time to tuck our tails between our legs and move back to Aiken.

Well, our realtor and the sellers realtor (not wanting to lose a commission) had talked and suggested an alternate offer might work. Ask for a reduction of the house sale price to match the amount we wanted at closing.

So by the end of the day our AirBnB was back to it’s normal mediocre self, we had a rental car to do the traveling to Washington and we had made a counter-counter offer on the house.

If a Wednesday the 13th was this troublesome, I hate to think what will happen a month from now on Friday, December 13th.

House Hunters IX

Even though we have placed an offer and it was accepted on House #5, after the home inspection last Thursday we are now having second thoughts. The front half of the roof needs replacing. The back half was done recently, but not correctly, they didn’t flash or put a boot over the electrical drop and other boots over the other 3 vents are torn. So new roof is in the near future. Because it is a hill side lot gutters should also be installed. The grade in the back needs to be re slopped away from the house to keep the water run off out from around the foundation. Both sides of the driveway retaining walls are leaning pretty good, not too urgent, but another couple grand to straighten out. The small rear deck on the back is kind of squishy in spots and there is a repair job on the back outside wall near ground level that needs attention. So this morning we combed the Sunday paper for Open Houses and plugged addresses into the GPS.

House #23 – This one is over in the area of town we would like to live in. It has recently been remodeled, along with the inside rooms, just about every major component has been freshened. The insides have character, but there is so much character that it bordered on quirky. There are 2 bedrooms up with a really nice bath between them and zero carpet. There were two bedrooms down as well. One bedroom down there with a random sink in it and its closet was around the corner. A shared bath, then a second bedroom that had a small extra room that could serve as a walk-in closet. All of the downstairs was freshly carpeted. The garage was intriguing in that it was a tandem, two cars could fit, but they had to be in a line.

House #24 – This too is right where we would really like to live. It is only 1,00 feet away from House #23 as the crow flies. It is 2 blocks up and two over, or 1/4 mile, for us land bound humans. This place is 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, which is nicer than House #23 in that on the main floor there was an actual master suite, then a second separate bath and a second separate bedroom. Downstairs was 2 beds and a bath with a separate laundry room. This was not as updated as #23, but as compensation there was an over-sized two car garage/shop a couple of steps up from the carport and back entrance to the house.

Both these places were similar to good old House #5 in that the upstairs areas were traditional sort of layouts and the downstairs levels were a warren of rambling rooms and hallways. And both were really more than we want to spend on a house. So we headed further west of town to go to two more open houses.

House #25 – This one was like Brian wanted in that it was all on one level. The kitchen needed updating, but it would be serviceable for a while. It did have a master suite, but the stand up shower was even smaller than the one we left behind in Aiken. There was carpet everywhere which we would have to pull up and replace with wood. No central air conditioning. It is not really too far out of town or too far from the YMCA, but to get to either place you had to drive through the area where all the shopping is, so it is not fun. The only real redeemable thing about the place was the back yard, it was a nice size with a small covered deck. There were a couple of small out buildings, including a greenhouse with four dug up holes in it1.

House #26 – This Open House visit was one more bone for Brian’s desire for one level living. The photos looked promising. It had all the right ingredients, 3 bedrooms with two baths. A master bedroom with wood floors. Two car garage with a nice size backyard that had a small deck. But then things unraveled quickly. It was a mile or so further out from the already far out #25. The homes were so cookie-cutter that on a dark night you would be hard pressed not to pull into the wrong driveway. In the end this Open House suffered the same fate as Home #11, we didn’t even bother to go inside it.

30th Miataversary

Thirty years ago today on a cool November evening Donna & I drove over to Augusta after work in our 1981 Honda Prelude (which looked remarkably like this.) Donna drove the Prelude home alone. I drove home in our brand spanking new 1990 Mazda Miata (which looked remarkably like this.)

Ever since that day we have always had a Miata in the garage. Except for this year. Tonight the Miata is in someone else’s garage. Back in Aiken awaiting our summons. Thank’s for babysitting David.

Run Aground

Up until a couple of days ago I have posted here for nearly a month straight (almost as prolific as I was back in the early days), but now I have missed 2 of the last 4 days. I blame it on the fact that now we have sort of settled down into a routine. Eat 3 meals, mostly here in the AirBnB, check our mail at our new PO Box, go to the Y, and visit Fred Meyers every other day, just like we visited Kroger’s back in Aiken.

The rest of the time is spent binge watch TV shows from Netflix’s Geriatric Section. So far we have watched all 16 episodes of 2 season’s worth of The Kominsky Method with Michael Douglas (75-years old) and Alan Arkin (85). Also, we are in the middle of the 3rd season of Grace and Frankie which is exactly halfway through their 6 season, 68 episode, run so far. This stars Jane Fonda (81), Lilly Tomlin (80), Sam Watterson (79) and Martin Sheen (79).

Trick or Treating on Steroids


There is a subdivision back in Aiken that is famous for two things, Christmas lights and Halloween. They actually have to have police directing traffic at the two entrances in. As it turns out, the street we plan on buying on, Pacific Terrace, is similar in spirit, at least for Halloween (don’t know about Christmas yet.) The folks along the street really go all out decoration-wise and are known for giving out full-size candy bars.

So to get a flavor of might be in our future, we decided to drive over around 6:30 and park on a parallel street, El Dorado Ave. Pacific Terrace has a wide grass median with one way traffic on either side. They shut traffic off to the street for 8 blocks. Wow, tons of families filling the sidewalks and streets dressed in costumes. The houses that were decorated were from tame to Yikes! There even a few just dark and not participating, but they were a minority.

The photo above is the house right next door to our proposed new home. Both times we visited during the day the two white girl ghosts, who must be motion sensing animatronic, would start to turn their heads back and forth while cackling, much to the delight of our realtor and ourselves. One of the dark houses that night was the one we are trying to buy, so for now, we don’t have big shoes to fill. We might start out going small school like some of the other homes. They just had some lights and dressed up in costume to hand out candy while sitting in their driveway around a small fire pit.

House Bagged


House #5 took the bait and was snared by our trap late this afternoon. Now let’s see how long it takes to get to closing. We optimistically asked for December 6th, but the realtor said inspections are taking up to 3 to 5 weeks to be scheduled and with only 4-1/2 weeks between now and the closing that doesn’t look promising. And how long will it take for loan approval?

As everyone knows it is not a real home until they are filled with Mountain Bikes, so this afternoon we visited the local bike store, Zack’s Bikes, and bought a couple. Mine is a size large in Matte Trek Black with 29 in wheels. We walked the mile and a quarter to the store, packing our helmets and cycling shoes to change into there. Hers is a size small in Purple Flip with 27.5 in wheels. We then rode them back the 1.25 miles to our Airbnb. Gonna take awhile for both of us to get used to the gear shifting of them…

House Hunters VIII

We are really making some progress, we have narrowed it down to four places, #3, #4, #5 and #16. So we asked our realtor for revisits today on 2 and a peek at one in the same neighborhood as one of the two.

House #3 – I still like this one, but Donna is still not liking it. She is right though, there is no real view. The outside of the house is inviting and now after a second look, I have to admit it should be better inside for the price they are asking. Cross it off the list.

House #21 – This is a split level and like one of the other 20 places we looked at, I can’t remember which, when you open the front door you have a 3′ deep landing and a staircase down (and up). At least the door was hinged correctly this time. Here was another one where the photographer was worth what they spent on him or her. It looked really nice in the photos online, but seeing it in person it was a big letdown and it wasn’t just because it was empty of furniture. There was no interest from either of us for this houses.

House #4 – This was a revisit of a place we both sort of picked apart the first time, but this was a Hail Mary on finding Brian a completely one story house. The pass was intercepted by the lack of A/C and the broken odd stove. It was an electric that was 40″ wide. Yikes, they are rare and expensive. Forget about it.

Over lunch Brian finally folded his last hand, House #16 as being to much money with the stuff we needed to do to it and then there was the $300 HOA fee on top of every thing. So we were discussing what we would offer on the winner, House #5, when a new house popped up on the market.

One last one story try for Brian, called Realtor and asked if we could see this place. It looked empty in the photos, so we thought we might be able to see it today. She called back and said could you meet me there at 2:00 PM. Why yes we could.

House #22 – The front view wasn’t dazzling, but not ugly by a long shot. It was the back view looking away that was the grabber, you were high enough up that you looked over town and some of the surrounding hills and mountains. Including Donna’s spirit mountain, Shasta. it was jam up with carpet though. I thought that the view would in fact trump the carpet, I was sure she would like it. Once again a quick look at twenty some odds photos, crash head first into reality. The house from the outside was good, the view was great, but the insides failed. The kitchen had a too large a refrigerator, the cabinets were ugly and the counter tops were outdated. The bathrooms were just as unappealing in person as the kitchen. The carpet was brand new. How did I know that they were new besides the smell. Well, when you first walk in the front door you are greeted by a handmade sign that said, “Please remove all shoes.” So to make this place workable we would have to spend, at least three grand on a new refrigerator and a new washer/dryer as there was none. Not to mention how much it would cost for those updates we would like. And for a while we considered offering on the house in spite of its issues, that’s how powerful that Shasta view was. But we came to our senses while traveling the best route to all the shopping and stores and businesses as it included several lights and was very busy.

Looks like House #5 is the winner. We’ll probably make an offer tomorrow.