July Report

My son, his family and I went on a 10 day trip to Hawaii, the America's Cup races began, learned that my 17th floor studio apartment is probably the best place in all of San Francisco to view the races, flew to Florida to buy a car and drive it to Minnesota, started the St Paul condo remodel AND made an offer and was accepted for a townhouse purchase in Los Gatos!  A quiet month by most standards.   


Hawaii

What can I say, I love Hawaii.  One of the most beautiful spots in the world.  And, we stayed in a set of Condo's in Wailea on Maui. Truly beautiful.  My granddaughter just loved the surf while my grandson spent hours in the pool. It was marvelous.  

We did have one teensy mess up on the trip.  My son and family arrived at SFO and I had cleared security and was waiting for them at their incoming gate.  As we grabbed a quick breakfast snack, I asked what kind of car they had rented.  Casey and Chris both looked at me with that "What?" expression on their face.  Seems like we all assumed the other was renting the car.  NOT!  

Fear not, gentle reader. With all my lifetime travels, I have an app on my iPhone.  Before the coffee was consumed, I had a reservation confirmed for a sedan that could handle the five of us.  And, is their practice, when we got to the rental car lot, they had upgraded me to a sport ute about the size of the state of Texas.  A very comfortable ride for our travels around Maui.  

We swam, toured, swam, walked the beach, snorkled, played in the surf and all the wonderful stuff you do with your grandkids on vacation.  It was a treat!  

There was a miss, however.  I had booked us on a sunset cruise on the 4th of July to watch the fireworks of Lahaina town from the water.  The concept is fantastic, the food was good (but not great), the weather was wonderful.  I guess, however, we could title this event with "In which we learn that Casey does get seasick on a boat." Ouch!  

As a result, Chris and I did Molokini and Casey and the kids took a pass.  They had a rough morning at the pool and beach while us guys did the snorkel trip.  

All in all it was a marvelous trip!  

Click here for more pictures. 

America's Cup and the 17th Floor

Upon my return from Hawaii, the semifinals of the Louis Vuitton Challenger Series was in progress.  Unfortunately, there were not that many competitors but I did watch Artemis (Sweden) compete with Luna Rossa (Italy) from my studio on the 17th floor.  New Zealand and Team USA were out regularly doing practice runs too.  

As for the view of the race course from 17, take a look at my pictures from this blog entry.  Click here.  

Also in the sports world was major league baseball.  I had attended the LA-SF game at AT&T park earlier and here is a picture of the Red Sox vs A's in Oakland. 

Boston Red Sox vs the Oakland A's at Oakland. 

For more baseball pictures, click here.  

Florida and the Cruiser

My friend Laura had decided to finally liquidate the last of her parents estate. This included a 1992 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser.  The only thing she could tell me was that it had low mileage.  Well, I took a chance, flew to Fort Lauderdale and discovered this Olds had been in storage since 2002 and had 32,000 miles on it. It was a top of the line Cruiser SL including the "woodie" side panels.  

AAA took it to the shop on a flatbed truck.  The shop owner was doubtful about the status as modern gasoline breaks down fairly quickly and then the resulting acidic solution attacks the working bits of the injectors and fuel system.  Well, apparently this car had old gas (or the product StaBil) in it as it fired right up once he put the jumper cables on it!  $900 later including a set of tires and it was ready to drive to Minnesota.  

When I picked the car up, the shop owner had a great conversation with me. 
"I replaced the air cleaner on that car 325 miles ago so I didn't put a new one on it."  
Made sense to me but then he added, "That was 12 years ago."  
Ah!
"All the hoses and clamps were redone 200 miles ago."
So now I am waiting for the punch line. 
"That was 8 years ago. They seem fine and you shouldn't have any problem driving this to Minnesota."  Amazingly, he was right!  He also said they drove the car around for a day to see if the tires would lose their flat spot for having sat in one place for 8 years or so.  They did not so he put new ones on the car. 

Laura had one more thing that I needed to do before I could leave.  We searched for hours and finally found it in a pawn shop.  A yellow surfboard to clamp on the top of the car for its trip to Minnesota!  And, the surfboard is still clamped there.  

I made the trip from Florida to Minnesota in good time.  My cousin, Mary Jo, had arranged a dinner in St Paul with my son and his family, her family, and they graciously included Stephanie.  Well, Stephanie had not met Chris and Casey so I thought it best that I be there for their first meeting.  After dinner, the kids played for an hour on and around the Cruiser.  It was cool if your age was still in single digits!  

Needless to say, its fun to pull into a parking lot and watch the reaction to people who see a woodie with Florida plates and a surfboard on the roof!  

Click here for more pictures. 

Remodel in St Paul

We spent some time negotiating the price of the remodel.  We basically deleted some fancy items that we just didn't expect to cost that much.  With all the deletes, we got the estimate down to our budget number.  It was about a 20% reduction from the original quote.  Not bad, not bad at all.  

Then the demolition started quickly. And, we were lucky that the walls we had removed were not bearing walls so there was no added cost to the remodel to build in weight bearing structures to replace the walls.  It was great to see all the progress that was made right away as a result of removing sheetrock, carpeting, flooring, appliances, the old kitchen sink, etc., etc.  

Of course, the first gotcha was the electrician.  He took one look at what had been hidden behind the walls of an early 70's built condo building and pronounced we needed to rerun the electrical, all of it...and it was not free.  Nor is it done in zero time either.  So our first change order and first delay.  

But still we were optimistic. After all, a week or two on electrical and we'd still be finished before Stephanie retired in mid-September.  

This was the initial demolition in July before the electrician had a chance to look at the wiring.

Click for more July demolition pictures here. 

New Los Gatos Home

There were two complexes in Los Gatos that we had hoped to buy into with Stephanie moving to California. Unfortunately, prices skyrocketed between my putting the Golf Links home on the market (May 2012) and the closing in June of 2013.  It didn't quite take us out of all the properties, but it was close.  

The other problem in July is that properties hit the market and were gobbled up in less than a few days. In some cases, in a few hours.  With Stephanie still living in Minnesota, it made decision making a bit 'dicey.'

One single story, three bedroom unit came on the market in one of the two preferred complexes!  Yeah!  It was perfect for layout, location, greenery, etc.  In fact, it was probably only a few hundred feet from my Golf Links home as it was on the back side of the block and down a dozen doors or so.  But, it had problems. I had my contractor look at it, and he estimated a rather substantial number just for the remedial work.  In fact, the remedial work was more expensive than what I had just agreed to spend in St Paul for the remodel. So we passed. (It eventually sold for almost $50,000 over asking price in spite of the remedial problems. Too much money in Silicon Valley, eh?)

The next unit came up in our other choice complex.  This was perfect. It had a front and back courtyard and patio so Stephanie can work her green thumb magic to her heart's content. It is on one level which us aging boomers need to be aware of for knee issues. Three bedroom, two car garage in what is termed a cluster home configuration.  What that means is that the living space does not share common walls, only the garages.  We also share the driveway with five other neighbors. Of course, we do share courtyard and patio fences. Our front patio opens on to the green belt of the complex so we can easily take Robbie out for his walks.  

One of the reasons the place is perfect is that the kitchen was totally out of date. My realtor, Joel Newman, asked me if I really wanted to buy a place with an out of date kitchen like this one.  My response?  "Joel, this is perfect!  I have no hesitancy or concerns about immediately demolishing the kitchen.  Stephanie and I can remodel it to our hearts' desire!"  

Now, not to say there was pressure, but I offered to fly Stephanie to view the house the first day it was to be shown.  Her response, quite lovely in one way but absolutely dangerous in another, was "I trust you, if you like it, it will be fine."  

Gulp. 

So with that endorsement, we moved fast in a fast moving market!  

This is Silicon Valley real estate.  

1. The listing went on MLS on Friday night with the statement that the house could not be shown until the open house on Sunday. Fortunately, I had been looking at open houses for a year and knew the townhouse property as three units had sold during the prior 12 months.  
2. I arrived at the open house as it opened on Sunday. 
3. Joel arrived a few minutes later. 
4. We left for Joel's office to go write an offer. 
5. Joel returned to the open house 30 minutes before it was to end with our signed offer. 
6. Late Monday afternoon, the owner and his realtor looked at the submitted offers. NOTE:  In 24 hours the place had collected multiple offers. 
7. Early Monday evening, Joel called to confirm our offer was accepted. The place was ours.  

We almost but not quite got into a bidding war--there was another buyer who was demanding a bidding contest because they really wanted the property.  Fortunately for me, the seller decided that my offer was good enough and stopped at that point.  Whew!  The seller was relocating to the East coast so we did a quick close so he could buy his new East coast property and then I did a rent back so he could take his time moving out for his cross country trek.  

Pictures of the new Los Gatos home as we bought it. 

And that, Dear Reader, is what I call a "Quiet Month."  

Ciao! 

June Report

As I reread my blog, I realized I had missed a couple of major items.  June is the first month of those items so here is the June recap.  

June was pretty simple, there is an older posting about selling and moving out of the Golf Links house (June 17, 2013) Click here to read it.  The only other notable June events are that Stephanie and I purchased a condo in St. Paul, embarked on a remodel project and then my brother Dan stopped in from Manila for a visit in San Francisco. 

Say What? A Condo in St Paul?  

Yes.  Stephanie set a plan to retire in September as she became eligible for Medicare.  And, other than two years she lived out of state, she is a full fledged Minnesota girl.  Couple that with her Mom, two sisters, brother, bother's-in-law, nieces and nephews, and a lifetime of friends, she has deep roots in Minnesota. 

Of course, I have my daughter, my sister, Mary's sister and family, my cousins both maternal and fraternal plus a bunch of Minnesota friends and it seems like a good idea.  

Of course, I look at Minnesota real estate compared to the San Francisco area and think there is a zero missing on the prices.  There was not.  

So Stephanie and I are happy co-owners of a two bedroom condo with indoor parking in a secure building in a very nice area of the Twin Cities.  We figure we'll spend up to three months there each year plus certain holidays. 

The major issue was that it needed a little clean up before we were willing move our stuff in.  We hired a contractor, approved the changes to the space--we only knocked down enough wall to eliminate the rabbit warren feeling--selected countertops, cabinets, appliances, flooring, sinks, faucets, backsplashes, paint colors, light fixtures, etc., etc., etc.  I was overruled about keeping the Minnesota Viking's Purple in the bathroom.  Stephanie insisted it be painted some other tasteful color. 

 Click here for the rest of the MLS pictures. 

And a promise of an August finish!  Wow, we were rocking and rolling!  The August finish was important because we were hoping to move Stephanie to California just a few weeks after she retired.  It would be great if the St Paul place was done by the end of August.  We could move her furniture in and head west! What a plan!  

Well, Dear Reader, you'll have to read the follow up postings to learn about our remodel experience.  

As for the rest of June, my brother Dan stopped in on his way back to Manila.  He is working visa issues and in the meantime has to leave every 90 days or so.  That works out pretty good as he has more stuff in storage in Phoenix that he is sorting and dumping. The problem, of course, is that there are gems in the stuff and he doesn't want to toss family or personal gems as he off-loads three decades of stuff.  

On the last day of June, Laura and I (who are both members of the Golden Gate Yacht Club) hosted our Pathway Grief Group for a Sunday brunch. 

Ciao! 

Pat

Merry Christmas!

Due to popular demand, I am going to update the blog on a regular basis again.

Well, one person asked, I guess that counts as 'popular demand'.

Because the blog posts the latest entries last, I am going to do a set of monthly recaps for everyone's enjoyment.  So if you see an entry dated December 6 but the topic is the June Report from last summer, you can safely assume there are more recent blog entries soon to be posted.

I have re-read the blog and have decided to start my recap from June of 2013 as that is the beginning of a quiet period in my life (yeah, right). I do have a bit of back-tracking to do! Patience dear reader, I will get to my current events soon.

If you would like to follow me on FaceBook, please feel free to do so.  My FaceBook address is: https://www.facebook.com/patlamey

Ciao!

Pat

It is better than I hoped!

What is he talking about now? 

The America's Cup races from my place in San Francisco.  It was a pretty good bet that I'd have a good look at the race as it progressed. Well, what I have learned this week is that it is more than just pretty good. From my little studio I can see the start line, the leeward gate, the windward gate and the finish line all without obstruction.  It is unbelievably good! Absolutely Amazing!  

One of my guests called this the 'Candy Corn' as in, "I see they are towing the candy corn out to set the gates for the race."  Yup, candy corn it is!  The boats had to race up and down the course and there were two pairs of candy corn (i.e., the gate) setting the turning points windward and leeward

Each race day I hosted friends who wanted to view the race. The price of admission is quite reasonable with parking being the big issue.  Fisherman's Wharf isn't the best place to park a car for free and my building only has five guest spots so it can be a challenge. Once here, however, the view is out of this world. 

The beginning of the fourth race and Sweden's Artemis takes an early lead. You can see both boats are up on their (hydro)foils. But, Artemis was penalized and then penalized again for ignoring (missing?) the first penalty.  A penalty means a time delay and they never recovered.  

The start of a yacht race is a true puzzle. Both boats must be in an imaginary box behind the start line at least 1 minute before the race starts. Well, its a relatively small box and the objective is to put your competitor in a bad position as the race begins with the sound of a starting gun.  For the 3rd race, Luna Rossa was so effective, it has the Swedish team sailing away from the start line as the gun sounded.  The Swedes apparently took the lead in the 4th race but the judges ruled they had faulted the Italian boat during the starting maneuvering and were given a penalty.  They ignored the penalty and were given a second penalty for ignoring the first.  It wasn't a surprise about ignoring the penalty, the TV announcers, experienced yachting competitors themselves, were claiming the Italian boat had fouled the Swedes!  So I guess the Swedish team was not looking for the penalty signal as appeared they would be the beneficiary. 

Unfortunately, in this competition, a penalty means you have to slow down for a fixed number of seconds while your competitor gets to sail away at full speed.  And, at this point in the race (2nd leg), the Italians were sailing downwind meaning a speed in excess of 30 mph while the Swedish team waited for the penalty to time out.  

The race has seven segments and this is the Artemis boat near the end of its 2nd leg (sailing downwind) at the turn marker while Luna Rossa is on its 3rd leg (sailing upwind) after completing the turn. The lead by Luna Rossa is the result of the penalties incurred by Artemis at the start of the 2nd segment. 

The difference between sailing downwind and upwind is the advantage of being able to hydrofoil in the downwind direction.  In the bay, when the boats are sailing from west to east (left to right), there is enough speed that they can 'foil' to go even faster.  In these pictures of each boat you can see the boat is up on the foils in the downwind direction. Think about this--the boats weigh in excess of 7 tons and they are riding on a carbon fiber hydrofoil.  It looks like they have three foils in this pictures but in reality there is one main foil and two rudders. The rudders do provide some lift and weight bearing but not much.  

In last month's preliminaries, Luna Rossa had not yet mastered sailing and maneuvering on their foils. It appears they learned a lot in the past several weeks.  

Both boats are up out of the water riding on their 'foils'.  The speed while downwind on the foils often exceeded 30 knots (about 35 mph) although they were being driven by winds that were half that speed. Amazing technology!  

Now compare the two pictures of the boat in the upwind direction. Their speed is cut to about 20 knots (about 24 mph) because one of the two pontoons are down on the water.  Having a pontoon in the water creates more 'drag' than being on a hydrofoil so the boats are slower. 

Upwind results in one pontoon being in the water and reducing the speed. 

Also upwind and also going slower. The rigging you see is the Barcalutha, docked in the Maritime museum on Hyde pier.
Click here to see the USS Barcalutha. 

The lead created by the penalties was insurmountable.  Artemis was the team who suffered the horrible accident in the spring where one of their sailors was killed.  The boat was destroyed and they did not get a competitive boat until two weeks ago. So they were competing against an Italian team that had more than 100 days experience on these big, fast boats while they had only a couple of weeks.  I and my guests cheered for the Swedish team, but it didn't help very much!  

My last views are of the race as it ends.  Luna Rossa crossed the finish line a full two minutes ahead of Artemis. 

Luna Rossa finishes the fourth and final race of the semifinals. In the background is the new bay bridge and Yerba Buena island 

You can see the candy corn of the far mark at the finish line. The other candy corn that forms the finish line is hidden by the buildings on the wharf.

The next series is the finals for the Louis Vuitton Cup starting Saturday August 17.  By beating the Swedish team, the Italians have earned the position to compete in the best of thirteen finals against New Zealand's Emirates team. The winner of the Louis Vuitton Cup then competes starting September 7th against the Golden Gate Yacht Club's Oracle Team USA for the America's Cup in a best of 17 series. This is the 34th competition for the cup which began in 1851 with the winning boat, America, beating the English competitor. 

Besides these pictures, I have more posted at:  http://patlamey.smugmug.com

You'll find me here watching the races!  Let me know if you'd like to come over and watch too!  

Objective #2 is Done!

Objectives for my retirement are: 

1. Improve and re-establish relationships with family and friends. 
2. Simplify my life:  By this I meant selling the big single family home and downsizing.  
3. My health:  Getting in shape and losing weight. 

And, as of this week, I am the proud owner of a townhouse in Los Gatos--a true lock and leave situation for me.  While the closing and recording were August 1, the current owner needs a few weeks to move out. So I'll be taking possession during the 3rd week of August. I already have my contractor lined up to work on removing the popcorn ceilings and doing some preliminary design work on upgrading the kitchen.  A lot of this needs to be done before Stephanie arrives in late October-early November.  

And, my life isn't exactly getting simpler. I still have the studio apartment in San Francisco overlooking Aquatic Park. It is just about perfect but I'd like to find two pieces of furniture to replace a couple items that just aren't quite right.  

And in June I bought a two bedroom condo in St. Paul as a co-owner with Stephanie.  We've gutted it and are redoing it to our liking.  Its in a secure building so we can leave it for long periods of time but then we can hang out in the Twin Cities as we see fit to visit friends and relatives. Plus the real estate market in the Cities hasn't recovered yet so we are hoping it will be prove to be a good investment as well. 

Overall, I am making good progress on objectives #1 and #2.  Lots of time with family and friends.  And I feel a huge relief knowing that I have found and bought a very desirable townhouse in Los Gatos.  Things are good! 

The health part is holding steady with no weight gain but I need still need to get into shape and lose some pounds.  My first step is that I now have bikes at all three locations so there is no excuse!  As an aside, the first bike was purchased new from a bike shop in Los Gatos--lots of gears and stuff with an overblown pedigree.  The second was purchased used from a neighbor in my apartment building in San Francisco--something called a Bianchi. The third was from a pawn shop in Minneapolis--that was an experience--and I did snag a bike called Treks or Trex or some such.  Some people tell me I did good with the two used bikes. What do I know? 

And I want to post a blog entry about my June-July experiences.  Because I am home (SF) for the next 8 weeks (but for 1 week), I plan on posting entries a little more frequently.  

The America's Cup races start on Aug 6.  I will be here!  

Ciao

Another Hawaiian Vacation!

Back on Mary's beaches, Keawakapu, Mokapu and Ulua Beach.

Here are the pictures from a morning snorkel on the 4th of July.

This vacation was with my son Chris, his wife, Casey, and their two offspring, Danny and Sarah.  We spent 10 days on Maui staying in a condo in Wailea.  It was an absolute blast!

Moved Out!

As I left Golf Links with the last of my possession on Saturday evening, I clipped these two roses from Mary's garden.  A very bittersweet moment...

After having five days of two men packing and moving my stuff into storage two weeks ago, followed by a frantic weekend where Stephanie and I packed up the rest of the stuff, the movers returned on Tuesday morning (June 11) and packed and put into storage the last of my household goods.  

There was a small pile of odds and ends left in the garage and the new owners graciously let it linger there for a few days.  Stephanie and I made daily trips to Los Gatos from San Francisco to get the last of it out, finishing on Saturday.   After sweeping the garage, Golf Links was no longer mine. 

Sue and I bought that house in the summer of 1984 when we returned to California.  I was recruited by a company then known as KLA Instruments and is now KLA-Tencor.  Chris was in middle school and Erika was just starting school.  The family loved the pool and spent hours and hours in it in the summertime.  Erika went to Daves and then Hillbrook.  Chris went to Fisher Middle School, Los Gatos High School and then moved to Univeristy of California at Santa Cruz.  In the early years at Golf Links, we had lots of fun with kid's parties and activities.  

The family pet that was most appreciated was Zippy, the cockatiel.  We used to let him fly between the family room and the kitchen--he had a perch in each room.  Chris learned how to rub the back of his neck.  The bird would walk from his perch to Chris sitting on the couch and demand a head rub!  It was hilarious.  The bird also imitated sounds and he was best at imitating the sound of a squeaky cabinet door in the kitchen.  

This isn't a picture of our Zippy but it is a classic cockatiel and looks like Zippy. 

In the early 90s, Sue and I were divorced and she sold her interest in the house to me.  Three years later, Mary moved into the house, we were married in 1996 and with dot com money in 2000-01, we did a major remodel.  Before the remodel we redecorated the house to make it ours.  These were some of the most pleasant memories with Mary.  Just coming to an agreement on the wall hanging or the color and pattern of a chair, wall paper or whatever.  Its mundane activity, but very close to my heart.  

Besides Mary and myself, Mary's son Daniel lived with us for a couple of years. And, of course, Mary's dogs: Sweep, Beau, Rocky, Shawna, Wolfie and Leyla (aka Wiggles).  Sweep, Beau and Rocky were rescue dogs and died within a year or two of our adopting them.  Shawna and Wolfie were from Sandy LaFlammes' Dawnglow kennels and lived until the ages of 17.5 and 15.5 years!  Leyla was adopted by the family next door and she moved with them to Tennesee a few months ago.  

Mary's last year (March 2009-April 2010) was the most intense living in the house. I became the chief cook and bottle washer.  When Mary was feeling good, she'd come out and sit at "the round" as we called it.  During that year, I called it the Master and Commander chair as she instructed me on how to prepare food for dinner.  I will never forget her quote as she sharply barked a corrective action to me.  

"Patrick, I am going to die of cancer, dammit, not from food poisoning because of something you do wrong in the kitchen!"  

After Mary died, I kept the house because of her dogs, Shawna and Leyla (aka Wiggles).  When Shawna died in March of 2012, I knew it was time to sell.  Mary and I had prepared for the day when I would die and leave her behind--we always figured I'd die first. We never planned for her to die first.  In our planning for her, the first step was to sell the house and buy something smaller and with less yardwork.  It has taken me three years to get to that point and that is what I will be doing now.  

If you are a regular reader, you know I purchased a studio apartment in San Francisco last year.  Well, I now have three storage rooms of stuff in Los Gatos at Extra Space Storage. And I will be living out of my studio apartment until I find the condo or townhouse that will become my new south bay home.  

My travel takes me away for the rest of June and most of July.  So I don't really have to face living in a one room apartment on a daily basis until August. And by then, I might have found my new place in the south bay.  

If you need my snail mail address, please feel free to ask for it.  
Email to: 
Pat @ Lamey . us . com (without the spaces, obviously) and I'll send the new address.  

Ciao...