Nobody Knows the Troubles I've Seen

Except maybe The Mrs.

It is now about day 18 of listing the house, and no offers. In a bizarre twist of fate, in San Schmose if your house does not sell within the first 21 days, you have to drop the price. Nobody buys a house "older" than 21 days without a price reduction. So, our original "priced-to-sell" price is now "priced-to-really-really-sell." Meaning no new minivan for The Mrs.

Shhh... don't tell her that.

Went to a business update meeting today, which is a meeting where they go over how well the company and your business unit are doing. My business unit is doing pretty well, it seems. But the company is not doing as well. Oddly, there was quite a bit of focus on a new product out of FC and how great it was and how it was stealing market share from the two big competitors at an impressive rate, and how demand is up up up. This is the product line that FC depends upon for their lifeblood.

Too bad that history has shown that when a product starts getting unusual hype in the update meetings, it's usually doomed. Maybe it's good that no one has bought the San Schmose house.

I started packing up the office today. I am finding that I am throwing out about 2/3 of the stuff, and packing the other 1/3. I threw out all my old IEEE journals today. Plus directions on how to run some CAD tools that we haven't used for a couple years. And power savings ideas for a project I worked on 6 projects ago.

Oddly, I'm starting to feel nostalgic for this place. In particular, I'm going to miss that my cube has 4 walls. For some reason, those FC guys only like to have 3 walls. It doesn't seem to have reduced their goofing-off time appreciably, though. They just goof off away from work by coming in late and leaving early.

Our neighbors across the street hosted a going-away BBQ for us on Saturday. It was fun, except Dennise abandoned me in the pool with our two kids plus one of the other neighbor kids so that she could sit with the adults and drink. I spent the first two hours chasing MaxieC back and forth between the pool and hot tub and refereeing squabbles between HannieC and he neighbor kid. The Mrs. was kind enough to pour me a beer every now and then, though. Finally, some other, older, neighborhood kids showed up, and I dumped the kids on them. Then I got to talk guns with their dad.

Bratwurst soaked in beer and onions was served. Yum...

I'm getting real tired of not living in the house, only sleeping there. There's no soap at any of the sinks (tucked away underneath in the cupboard where you can't see it), cuz soap is ugly. There are only decorative towels, so you can never dry your hands. We can't eat anything messy. On the weekends, we leave at 10am and return at 6pm so that no one can come see the house.

We spent yesterday at the SF Zoo. HannieC declared herself "bored". She believes she is now too big to enjoy a zoo. This is, perhaps, because she has gone to a zoo more times in her first 6 years that I have in my entire life. MaxieC really enjoyed the giraffes.

On the way home, we stopped at The Sonoma Chicken Coop for dinner. It was horrible! My dinner was inedible (though, to be fair, I had a splitting headache from the complaining at the zoo and during the long drive back from it), and The Mrs. did not care for hers, either. The kids liked theirs. This place got rave reviews from many people. I don't know why. Their brewhouse pale ale wasn't too bad.

Hmmm... Now I am home and the rest of this post got disappeared somehow. I don't remember what I said, so I'll wrap it up.