No Threepeat

Wedding Anniversary hits the 1st weekend of December, but even if WPBT was later in month I would be destined to miss as I will be in China most of month to make sure the manufacturing of latest design goes smoothly.

Company I work for is a big believer in Webex but being there is superior.

Have a good WPBT

My picks

There is degen sports bettor at work who has been asking me all season about what to pick.

I told him early this year to bet the over every Georgia Tech game until it loses so he has been asking my opinion regularly and asked me why I don't bet since obviously I have no objections to gambling.

Rather than face wife' wrath for anything out of hand I decided I could play a 5 team parlay for $10 bucks each week.

1st week I was 3 of 5, 2nd I went for 6th but was 4 of 6 (half the picks were top 5 College teams each week and got burned). 3rd week Stanford, Falcons. 49ers, GB/SD over were easy winners and Bengals came through a sweat to complete the win.

Monday morning brought me high fives as little did I know dude at work always bets $50 so had backed up my $10 with his own $40.

For competition with Waffles picks are

Chargers 8

Eagles 16

Ravens 15

Packers 14

Dallas 13

Texans 12

Cowboys 11

Jacksonville 10

KC 9

Steelers 7

49ers 6

Browns 5

Dolphins 4

Carolina 3

Saints 2

Jets1

World Series Thoughts

1.) If I am the Cardinals fan that already collected $125k on them winning NL and has $250 ticket on them winning the World Series I am betting $50k on the Rangers with the Money line and $75k on the Rangers getting 1 1/2 runs and hoping for a 1 run Cards victory.

2) That was quite a stomach punch game for Rangers last night, my expectation is Cardinals will carry the momentum into game tonight and pull off win especially in light of Hamilton being injured and Cruz limping in 11th.

3) Kudos to respect Cards fans showed to Pujols batting in what could have been his last at bat ever as a Cardinal (3 times) I could not help but think as they booed the intentional walk in his last at bat could there be a more fitting way for him to finish as a Cardinal?

Red Sox Implosion

Heard Nomar quote this morning:

"If we want to go down the list... now we're hearing about Terry Francona, before Terry ... it was Johnny Damon, before him you had Derek Lowe, you had Pedro Martinez, you had Manny Ramirez, you had myself, then you had Mo Vaughn, then you had Roger Clemens, then you had Jim Rice, Carl Yastrzemski, and oh, by the way, one Ted Williams. So the list is pretty good, pretty prestigious, but it seems to happen. So there's a pattern. Is it all these guys that are bad or is there something more here."

Not sure if it was Rome or Cowherd that said in response, ~"People in New England are short and angry when young, eventually some get taller".

I was 16 when I started rooting for Red Sox as I had not lived near a Major League team prior to moving to Westford. I am quite disgusted by the treatment Francona has received in press. Only a matter of time before Theo gets trashed in press as well. I thought both would drink free forever.

Gone Fishin

Best bit from TNT's around the NBA during the playoffs is Kenny Smith's 'Gone Fishin' pictures.

As a Red Sox fan I love when I watch A-Rod standing at the plate after a strikeout to end Yankee's season as the other team mobs the pitcher even if it has become a bit of a cliche. I am sure MiamiDon (now private and I am not invited WTF) and Steve are much happier than Hoy about the NLCS matchup but I did feel for Ryan Howard for the brutal way his season ended (maybe top 5 worst season end in baseball history).

I have also been waiting all weekend to see the Josie v. Waffles picks, certainly seems like Waffles has the better handle on the game weighting and suspect the wager is Josie will have to pick up waffle's laundry and return it all clean, pressed and neatly hing and folded.

Years ago a co-worker (Andrew) and I made a bet about project progress with our project manager about a milestone. I forgot what our punishment was if we lost but she made mistake of telling us what was at stake for us before we had figured out our side. We did not know what to ask for in stakes but Andrew's wife determined that if we won Bo had to dress up in 50s garb and serve us tea/coffee and get our lunch one day at work.

Hopefully waffles came up with something more evil and made sure there is no gag order.

Soon we will have a working kitchen

The one aspect about the house that I knew I would someday replace was the oven. I believe it was original equipment when house was built in 1984.

Two burners were problematic but would sometimes heat but 1st time we used oven it failed.

On the positive side the Realtor and mortgage broker (who were probably very pleased to collect fees on a speedy purchase/close) got us a warranty on the appliances. Repair guy came out and determined it could be fixed with a few parts that had not been generally available this century so recommended replacement.

I was assuming we would try to work a deal to get some cash amount for a replacement and then let wife pick out upgrade she wanted. For 3 weeks now I have gotten to deal with wife being bat shit pissed while she dealt with insurance company and planned meals around a grill, toaster, microwave and waffle iron as cooking options.

Big win for us when the repair guy rejected the oven they chose because original had downdraft venting and he has to install to code. Cost of creating venting outweighed cost of oven upgrade.

They have come in and removed the old oven:

It is a little weird when you realize how close to the microwave you have stepped when pulling stuff out. Unfortunately hauling away the old oven is not included but I will get a hand truck and haul away when Santa CLara has their dispose of electronics day.

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The final fight was my wife wanted radiant elements (right side in below picture) rather than coils. Insurance company was pain in the ass about this as well even with my wife offering to pay the cost difference. Jenn-Air is already planning to discontinue the coils so appliance store that insurance was using convinced insurance company that radiant elements were in stock and coils would need to be shipped.

They finally agreed we get the radiant elements once they receive a cashiers check for the cost difference. They were insistent about money order or cashiers check

Wife was heading to the bank this morning for $8 cashiers check.

Finish Line Reached

With 2 days to spare we have removed last items from apartment and turned in keys. Saturday when I was over grabbing a few boxes (and making use of dumpster) there were 6 moving trucks in parking lot of ~200 unit complex. I think many of my former neighbors also believe "The Rent is too damn high"

It was a nice apartment and I would miss some of my neighbors but at this point there are only 3 neighbors left that we used to socialize with.

Unpacking is an adventure as this time we are going to open every box and make a decision to keep, donate, trash or shred then trash. I am also hanging pictures and a clock on wall as mindset is that we will be here a while (assuming I can remain employed)

Worst finds so far have been either a box that we moved from Petaluma 5 tears ago that only held documents that needed to be shredded, the ancient TIVO that does not understand digital TV or the HOV lane stickers for the Civic.

To be fair since the wife's main driving during HOV times was to deliver the demon child to school she was already car pool lane qualified without stickers or else I would have certainly looked a little harder for them. Now I think I want to find a massive SUV or Hummer to put them on since I don't see how it can be illegal to apply a sticker for a defunct program.

Worst non-finds are the power cable to XBox and phone.

If we get through remaining boxes and don't find phone this may be final tipping point to cancel land line to house. It is probably goner in 6 months anyway after we have made sure all the bills have change of address.

1st Night

Move yesterday went rather smoothly, 3 dudes and a truck for $90/hour for an insured company that was registered with state of California seemed better than $40/day for U-Hail plus mileage plus hiring a few people at Home Depot since I would not have to lift anything.

Had no idea that 2 of 3 dudes would be older and all would be light but I guess they were wiry strong. Wife did think they dragged job along loading but in their defense they did fill the 24' truck.

We will still have to go back and forth to apartment a few times to pick up quite a few items but it is not that far out of way for my work commute.

Furniture does fit in dining room and living room as long as I give up recliner but wife was kind enough to allow it in Master Bedroom. Kid has also surrendered her TV due to lack of cable outlet so I have my own man cave corner in bedroom.

Now just need the boxes to unpack themselves.

I did make some discoveries as part of moving process:

1) I have not looked at my High School yearbook in at least 15 years. I opened it up before packing it and quickly discovered I actually have my younger brothers yearbook from my senior year.

2) I had a small wedding (~25 peeps) but at no point did 3 of the people in attendance appear in the 100s of photos. My Uncle I can understand as he did not let other people use his cameras but Sean and Kelly never appearing disappointed me.

Sean and Kelly got married ~3 years before E and myself and their wedding was the first time I introduced E to my college friends. Kelly was also 1st person I told about expecting demon child as I wanted to wait until April 1 to tell my parents and any co-workers and when I called her to ask Sean about watching Final Four that weekend Kelly had told me that she was pregnant so perfectly natural response that March 31st was "Congrats, E is pregnant too". Kelly and Sean did congratulate me but Sean's last words to me that evening were "Congrats but if this is an April Fool's prank you're a dick". We spent a lot of time together the next 4 years as having daughters 2 weeks apart did nothing to complicate our friendship until I lost touch with them when my brood relocated from Maryland to California.

Unfortunately Kelly had a seizure due to an AVM 2 weeks ago while vacationing with her family, 2 days later she had angiogram to confirm treatment and prepare for Surgery on Saturday but AVM hemorrhaged and took her life.

I feel for Sean's daughters as the Demon Child's words from 3 years ago are still deeply embedded. As she hugged her Mom three years ago she said "you scared me, I thought you were going to leave me with just him".

RIP Kelly

The Time Line

July 3 - We receive letter from apartment manager informing us of terms for new lease we will face Sept 1.

July 4-7 - Many discussions with the wife. Lots of tension as I am simply unwilling to pay as much as they are asking to rent.

July 8 - Wife leaves town for a trip that was already planned but it gives us some cooling off time at a fortunate time. It is also 1st night that she is gone that it dawns on me that I could buy condo such as this, pay 3% down. Principle + Interest + PMI + HOA would be less than current rent. Additionally recovery point for down payment vs. 1012 rent was 19 months

July 9 - Wife is out of town so demon child and I go to look for new apartment. We look at The Domicilio which at the time was asking $250/month less than rent increase we were facing. Pluses were it was nice enough that wife would not whine. Negatives were that there were a lot of college students in place since it is adjacent to Santa Clara University. We also look at an apartment near demon's high school, wife will hate but kid could safely walk to high school.

I also present kid with idea of buying to get her buy in I take her here. Logistics are difficult but they had 1 home that was ready to move in so thought could time.

July 11 - Kid takes wife to see apartments we looked at as well as new homes. Wife is not offended by new home nor 1 apartment. But Domicilio is now asking $75 more/month.

July 12 - After explaining thinking about condo and how it makes more sense to buy than continue renting, wife gets enthused about looking for a house. Because she doesn't fucking listen she looks in Los Gatos.

July 16 - I meet with real estate agent (along with wife and demon who met him on 14th) , he is going to take us to see numerous houses in Los Gatos but we include one house in Santa Clara I am insistent upon and 2nd house in Santa Clara he finds. All houses in Los Gatos have multiple aspects demon hates, at least one aspect my wife hates, I am trying to be open minded but don't want to commute from Los Gatos. We see house in Santa Cara I wanted to see, wife likes. We see other Santa Clara house, it is comical how blatant it is that it is flip. Cheap paint, lowe's stickers still on windows, "loft added which is converted attic and stairs are as steep as pull down attic stairs. We decide to get reports on 1st Santa Clara house. Demon cheers. Wife may not listen to me but listens to Demon child downright giddy about not wanting to change schools.

July 19 - Offer made

July 22 - Counter accepted

Late July normal gathering of paperwork hassle to get loan approval, plus selling all stocks to make sure I have enough cash freed up for down payment.

Aug 5 - Papers signed, checks written, wire transfers completed.

Aug 8 - seller signs upon return from biz trip.

Aug 11 - keys.

Now really gambling

I am in process of buying house (A).

My thinking originally was we would buy a condo, put 3% down pay the PMI and get 5/1 ARM which would get me Mortgage payment ~$600 less than apartment wanted for rent if we moved to upgraded unit (which we have to do within a year or move out). Advantage was thought I could walk away saving a few dollars at expense of credit rating if housing market out here continued to plummet.

Problem with a condo is you never know what you are going to deal with as far as resident below or above you goes. My latest downstairs neighbor seems nice enough but he smokes about once an hour, his wife doesn't let him smoke inside and he has not adhered to my polite request to warn us when he is lighting up so we can close sliding glass door and windows for a few minutes.

I would rather have the brothel back downstairs than have apartment smell like cigarettes.

Townhouse has only 2 neighbors no one below so we have solved the smoke problem.

What I can't help but think is I own the downside risk of home price until down payment is exhausted and I also need price to rise 6% to break even.

Other risk is to choose 5/1 ARM at 3.375% or 30 year fixed at 4.625%.

3rd risk is that wife won't spend too much money once we are in a "home"

On positive side demon child gets to stay in same High School and would live closer to her BFF as well as my tax adjust cost of housing is fixed at ~ what I was looking at for rent in a year.

A Job Opening and real estate observations

My current job will probably have layoffs this months. A bunch of people accepted early retirement and I am not a numbers cruncher like some people but I assume that a one time write-off in the financial reporting will mean early retirements and layoffs will occur in same financial quarter.

Managers at work are going batshit trying to be make sure aspect of big project they are responsible for gets done ahead of restructuring makes work a little more stressful, but managers are always a bit stressed to make the deadlines that they had no clue how company could accomplish. Every engineering schedule is based on noting going wrong. My current project is first one that had schedule impacted by a tsunami.

I have decided with Timberwolves firing of Kurt Rambis I should apply to replace as I think it is nice raise and how hard can it be to do better than 32-132. Saying in baseball is team wins 50 games no matter what manager does, team loses 50 games no matter what manager does and it is other 50 games where manager earns his pay (154 game season made this saying a lot cleaner). Doing better than 20% seems trivial.

South Bay rental prices are a bit out of control. In general monthly rents are increasing by ~$400/month and a lot of apartments are refurbishing to add granite counters in kitchen as well as stainless steel appliances. I have no frkn clue why counter top and what surface you add art and notes to on refrigerator rates a rent premium.

My observation is washer/dryer in apartment is $400

Square footage over 800 is $20/sq ft/month

Granite + stainless is $300/month

Deal with current apartment is they want to jack rent $400/month but end of lease we have to either move out, move to another apartment in complex (that this year would cost $300/month more) or move out for a month where we refurbish.

This morning my wife tried to talk me into just sucking it up and renewing lease for year.

I countered with we should buy a condo a mile away because kid would go to same frkn bus stop and from prices I am seeing on zillow Mortgage + Insurance + HOA + Property tax would be $300/month less. I leave for work thinking it is no brainer decision and am frustrated wife is still arguing. Wife does decide when I leave for work go ahead and get condo if you want! I think this is case either where she has forgotten I do not understand subtlety or believes my trend of not paying full cable bill or cell bill each month has torpedoed credit rating.

At lunch I talk about condo pries vs. rental rates with co-workers. I work with engineers so OF COURSE none of us have wife's view of granite + stainless having any value.

Work hypothesis developed is people who paid $500-$600k for local condo are underwater and thus shortselling or walking away letting foreclosures happen since they can't refinance underwater properties and are now increasing rental demand. The math for buying these same condos in the $300-$400 range make it attractive for renters who can afford down payment to jump in.

This all prompts me to check credit rating, apply via web for loan pre-approval and try to find buyer broker.

I get home and much to my surprise wife has bought into idea with both feet and has lined up buyer broker. Little do I realize that her friend Sunny (who I have met) probably is involved in buying or selling house/month along my route to light rail station. I am quite oblivious but I swear her picture on real estate sign is a LOT different than she looks in person.

Happy 4th

My wife finally decided it was okay to give away the family room furniture that has been sitting is storage for 5 years. 1st year was paid for by company that moved me down here which sadly enabled us to not make decisions that should have been made long ago. Clearing out a 10'x10'x10' space takes some time especially when mainly using a Prius to haul shit away but at this point I am probably 80% done and other than some golf clubs it is tempting to leave it unlocked and thank anyone that decides they want anything in there.

Best finds in the cleaning out are a bunch of old pictures:

This is from Kapalua in August 2008. In the golf cart are Rick Carlisle (driving) and Marc Ivaroni. They were going to Oahu the next week to help at Pete Newell Big Man camp and I was too much of a dumbass to get them to actually pose for a picture with me. At the time they were both assistant coaches in NBA but I talked to them more about ACC Basketball as I was at Tech when Rick was still at Virginia.

Wife and Demon child got to meet them as well as me and the Scottish gentlemen who I was paired with paid off our lost wagers (drinks afterwards I think only Scotsman had alcohol) as I think Rick shot just a few over par.

Per Josie request

Year is almost half over, last few weeks have seen some downward movement after 2 month lull. This puts me at just short of halfway to goal just short of halfway through year but I figure I am not burning 30 calories/hour walking and unknown less in other activities since I am carrying less weight.

What Would you Do?

After reading waffle's post on the subject as well as Rigg's I decided to post my own WWYD.

As a disclaimer I must point out that unlike these people I am not old enough to be eligible.

Company you work for has announced they are going to reduce $1 billion in expenses, you work in a group with a significant number of contractors that is still in key segment of companies business.

Those who are 50+ and with years at company added reach 60 are eligible to opt for early retirement which means getting X years pay plus Y years medical plus other incentives. (I don't feel it is right to post exact details put did find details here.)

You also get information that in the event you are laid off you will receive X/3 years pay and Y/4 years medical.

Math would indicate from numbers that intent is to reduce work force 5-10%.

1) Do you immediately look for another job?

2) Do you automatically take the retire offer even in absence of finding new job?

3) What odds would you need that you can find a new job within time period X to have sufficient pot odds?

Vegas Bound

Youngest cousin (I have met) is getting married this summer. Bachelor Party is this weekend with base being Mandalay Bay.

I may play PLO Monday and if not Tuesday.

I am also comped into a Blackjack tournament so will have to play that. It is 1st so obviously it is play Blackjack but rest of strategy will be new. What I learned at my only craps tournament was my being 2nd shooter and rolling well did nothing for me as other people made more money than I. But what I learned playing craps with Recess was to use position to make sure I was collecting slightly more when table was good.

One thing for sure is I need a break from work. Was so psyched that boss started 3 week vacation Monday but fucker keeps emailing questions. I will not be checking email when I vacation.

Still No Poker

Today marks 6 weeks without poker.

I do miss going to the Morgan Hill Tournament but the hosts schedule worked out that April tourney was his last until August and it is always 1st weekend of month. I am not sure I miss Online anymore. I might have felt compelled to play to maintain IronMan status as that was worth a bonus few bucks every month.

I only have one more month where I can drive solo in the HOV lanes. We own two hybrids bud sadly I misplaced stickers for wive's car when we got them. Will probably find when I get around to clearing out storage. There are no HOV lanes along my short commute route to work so will only miss stickers the few nights I head North after work to visit old co-workers.

I looked at a Tesla Roadster as I think the all electric vehicle stickers are still active but determined I can't sit in Roadster with roof on.

From workplace last quarterly report:

"We plan to also undertake certain cost control initiatives, such as a voluntary early retirement program, further workforce reductions and other restructuring activities. We expect to recognize a pretax charge in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 of between $0.5 billion and $1.1 billion in connection with the voluntary early retirement program, which amounts will be paid in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011. At this time we cannot quantify the amount of further restructuring charges that we expect to recognize in future periods, as we are in the process of evaluating these activities."

I believe I have reasonable odds to not be part of "further workplace reductions" but it definitely makes work more tense plus sense I have played as much poker as I have I recognize that the risk is never zero.

No Poker, Only work

The 15 days without poker left me with more time to sleep and sadly less urgency to leave work in time to register for the 7:20 (Pacific) Rush Super Turbo KO.

Eventually I will find another hobby and/or exercise more but last two weeks work has been busy as I am covering for co-worker who went to Mother-in-laws funeral (in Iran) so have departed closer to 9 each night.

The most important thing learned at work is that it may seem cool to name a project after a Marvel Comics theme but once you involve Canada trouble occurs.

There have been some holdups shipping from China to US and from US to Bangalore just because we put Project name on manifest.

Someone has some explaining to do to convince people that they really are just router boards rather than some mysterious Weapon X.

More bored than pissed

It's Saturday Night.

Wife is already asleep, daughter has headphones on.

Shark's game is over.

Turbo Fiddy is underway and I can't play.

Bay 101 does not deal PLO.

Bay 101 here I come

Was already having a bad day at work, had to go tell boss about a mistake on his project. I did not make the mistake that hoses schedule quite a bit but dude who made error is on Leave of Absence so I get to clean it up.

Email lit up with the DOJ news about end of online.

On positive I had mostly cashed out to go to Las Vegas last week.

On the bad side I have been on a heater since Tuesday.

I also took 2nd in an On-Demand Rush tourney for $399 and had double cash in 10:20 super turbo KO.

Only positive I can take from end of hobby is Waffles won't get to $10k so bet is mine biatch.

Vegas Weekend Report

Tried to text Falstaff based on 2007 WPBT spread sheet. Got "dude you got wrong number" text.

Drank no beer to limit my carbohydrate intake. Jack and Diet Coke hits harder though.

Jack by the shot hits even harder (Recess idea, the shots at least).

Craps was burning money until MITCHELL starting hitting tens like it owed him money, rough estimate is 10 total including 4 in a row at end at Planet Hollywood.

Recess and I headed to IP to meet up with Don and others for dinner (hope Saturday was correct day), we settled in on a craps table with a few good shooters who were overly inked but don't think much were prison tattoos to wait. We had another good run at table. We switched to tequila after discovering my diamond status with Caesars allows Patron upgrade. But we may have neglected to tell Don et al to look for us at a craps table.

We gave up at 8:30 and headed to dinner needing to soak up some alcohol.