My downsizing saga, Pt. 1

I've been a custom home builder for nearly 40 years.  Inflation, zoning laws, and buyer's tastes being what they are, most of the homes I build today are very large and cost well over $1M (just the kitchen appliances cost more than my first home) and look something like this:

(Sorry for the small photos.  Any larger and they lost sharpness.)

Maybe that's why big swanky houses hold no special allure for me....I see them every day.  *yawn*  For myself I built a more modest-sized home....3,147 sq feet, two-story, corner lot, study, 24' x 36' Great Room, etc.  (I know...what was I thinking?)  When I met K and first brought her to my home her jaw hit the floor when she walked in.  To me it was just run-of-the-mill, but to her it was "a mansion".  She loved it at the same time I was tiring of it.  That was in 2006.  By 2007 the economic outlook was getting scary.  By 2008 it was obvious to me it would be "man-the-lifeboat" time very soon.  I could see a little pro-active strategic planning was in order.

In retrospect I'm the last person who should own a home.  I HATE yard work, but with a next-door neighbor who was Mr. Yard-of-the-Month I had to put forth at least some effort.  To me a yard is just a place for the dog to crap.  I don't entertain much at home, and never have any overnight company. 

I DETEST doing maintenance of any kind, but of course I do it (grudgingly)....I want things to look good and work right.  I flip the switch and expect things to come on.  Unfortunately things don't always work like that and my home was by then at the age where maintenance / repair was becoming a regular occurrence.

My kids were long since grown, educated, married, and on someone else's payroll.  I had bedrooms....an entire upstairs even, unused.  When is a 24 x 36 foot Great Room too big?  When you have to wave your arms and yell to get your mate's attention.  And besides, when you're in bed asleep you can't tell if your bedroom is 13 x 13 or 23 x 23.  The thought of paying for all that unused space, and paying taxes on it, and insurance, and utilities, etc, was really bugging me.

I knew it was going to break my new bride's heart to give up her "mansion", but she deferred to me (thank you Sweetie!) and let me put it on the market.  My timing was fortunate....values were still up there and financing hadn't yet seized up.  We sold it before the economy "hit the fan" and did well.

Since K had been driving 50 miles round trip in heavy traffic daily to work I told her we'd rent a 2 bed, 2 bath apartment somewhere closer to her work for a while and we could address another, smaller home later.  My plan was moving forward.  

That's where I'll leave the story for now.  Part 2 tomorrow.

S

Catfight in Arkansas

Did you hear about the big stink in Arkansas *cue the banjo music* over who is the rightful owner of a million dollar lottery ticket? It seems a lady bought a ticket, then later scanned it at the store to see if she was a winner.  The scanner said "no" (or she misread it?...I mean this is Arkansas), so she threw the ticket in the trash.  Later another lady was sifting through the garbage and found a bunch of discarded tickets and took them.  She apparently checked them again and found one was worth a million dollars, so she claimed it. 


Enter the first lady again:  She said she paid for the ticket, it was hers, and she wanted her money.  Lawsuit, court, blah, blah....the judge agreed.  The dumpster diver was told to give up her winnings.  Really?


It seems to me when you throw something away you forfeit any rights you had to it.  If this is the new standard of ownership what about all those people who find a painting in their dusty 100-year-old attic or left curbside for anyone to pick up is worth a fortune?  Who owns it?  The same with a dropped winning ticket found at the racetrack?  Who do YOU think should get the winnings?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Things continue to look bleak at work.  I still can't get over how the politicians and the greedy bankers have ruined our economy.  We have several small jobs dangling in front of us, but they just get us by month-to-month.  I'm extremely grateful to have them, don't misunderstand, but I need another real project to work on.  We have our eye on a lucrative commercial job that is in the talking stages, but that will be many months (a year?) before any $$$ changes hands.  A prospective client from last year said he should be ready to build a new home for his family starting in June, but with him things tend to get put off.  We're sending letters to many of our customers from years past asking if it's time for some updating.  We'll see.  

S

The countdown begins....

My daughter Erica's baby is due next Saturday, but as we all know, babies don't pay much attention to dates and calendars and such.  As I recall her son Parker was born a few days early.  Does that make it more likely my first granddaughter (Blakeley) will arrive early, too?


Contrary to what I experienced yesterday (cool and rainy) I heard on the news this morning that the last 12 months here in the US have been the warmest on record, and that in just the month of March we set over 15,000 record highs and (warmest overnight) lows.  (Is it global warming, or just all the election-year hot air coming out of Washington?)  Then I opened my blinds and saw fog so thick you couldn't see across the street.  NOT a normal April occurrence, I promise.  I don't think I like where this is going.


Do you ever get the strange feeling things just aren't quite right?  I mean the weather, natural disasters, current events, the world-wide economy, etc?  I can't see how anyone can honestly say they have a handle on things.  My senses tell me to pull back, hunker down, and stay as nimble as possible.  Regardless of which volcano blows up, which tectonic plate cuts loose, whether Greece pays it's bills, China implodes, or Iran pushes the wrong button and blows itself up, it's all beyond my control. 

This just seems like a good time to lay (lie?) low.  I think sometimes we outsmart ourselves.


Happy Monday.  ;)


S

"Get in, sit down, shut up, and hold on"

Just when we thought the economy might be stabilizing somewhat we hear this:  Foat Wuth-based American Airlines, already in bankruptcy, announced yesterday they were laying off 13,000 employees. OUCH!  Those are 13,000 people, presumably with about as many families depending on them.  


We Americans have been criticized for years for "living beyond our means", but how do you know what your "means" are these days? How do you make any long-term plans or purchases without knowing if you're going to have a job several years in the future, regardless of how vital your job is or how skilled you are?  I know a great many airline employees, both current and retired, from my 20 years of volunteering alongside them with the Commemorative Air Force.  (Formerly the Confederate Air Force, it's a group that buys, restores, and flies vintage WWII aircraft.  "Lowandslow"....get it?)  Many of them will be devastated by this layoff. 


Over 8,000 mechanics will soon be on the streets. How many do you think will lose their homes to foreclosure in Ft. Worth and Tulsa, American's two largest maintenance bases?  What about property values in general in those areas?  And unless they speak a foreign language and are willing to relocate to Turkey, China, or Latin American and work for 50% less, they're screwed.  American A&P mechanics are dinosaurs these days.  Three cheers for globalization!


Over a thousand flight attendants will be out of work soon, too.  They took a HUGE pay cut after 9/11 and haven't recovered since.  (My girlfriend before K was a flight attendant.)  Same for baggage handlers, provisioners, and some mid-managers.  But here's what gets me....millions of dollars are still paid out to senior executives as "retention bonuses".  They say if they don't pay these bonuses they'll lose their smartest, most valuable people.  I say that based on results, they're not worth a damn anyway.  (Have you ever noticed the same group of senior executives just bounces around from airline to airline?  Have you ever noticed almost all the major carriers have been bankrupt at least once?  Do you see a pattern?)


Over 400 pilots will soon be on the streets, too, but with their substantial incomes I would hope they would have put some $$$ away and can afford to stay in their homes and maintain their lifestyles. But what about when the survivors retire?  Are there replacements working their way up the ladder?  The commuter airlines (think of them as major airline farm teams) say the quality of their applicants is at an all-time low.  The appeal of an airline job just isn't there any longer.  This certainly won't help.


Yep, the glamor of flying is definitely gone.  Has been for years. "Get in, sit down, shut up, and hold on."  Sad.


S