last day of work

Today was my last day at Isis. I must say that I am excited to be done with the commute. I did take the slower coast route for a while though, down the coast where the road runs right along the beach without even a row of houses between the road and the beach.....

.... pause for an announcement.... Jason and I are in the process of selling our cars. Jason is actually done with the process, and he is beginning to realize that he is a southern Californian without a car. For the past few hours he has been intermittently commenting that he no longer has a car. I am guessing that he will be over this soon, or not. I keep telling him that it should be freeing to not have a car. He does not really believe me, but I will keep assuring him. I think that he sold it out of spite so that I have to get up early with him and drive him to the office.... back to our regular programming.....

I am going to be spending the next week and a half finishing all of the things that need to be done before we get out of the house-- repairs from the request for repairs, getting ready for termite tenting, and packing. It seems impossible that we close a week from tomorrow, but it is real. Now I just need to find a time for some riding and all of the other things that I want to do before I leave that I know I will not have time for.

Jason and I had our last real meal that we will probably have in the house. No one took the open box of risoto rice on Saturday, so we cooked that up with the home made chicken stock from the freezer, tomatoes and basil from the garden, smoked scarmosa and the end of the parmesean that Chandra brought from Italy, and a cucumber salad. It was a meal worthy of our time in the house.

Pulling together the loose ends

I was talking with the realtor and the electrician who were at the house to go through some paper work and take care of items on the request for repairs, respectively, when my phone rang and the termite inspector arrived. Fortunately, they all seem to be used to people trying to juggle this many things at once, so I assure myself that this is what everyone goes through selling a house. I am also supposed to be working from home today.

The plumber is now in the garage working on the water heater and I just finished talking with Jason about the continuous moving target of wood rot repair. (Really, you would not think that it was that difficult, but the inspector is the least clear person that I have interacted with in a long time who could have a substantial effect on my life.) We are hoping to have a different inspector come by on Monday who may be more enlightening. I have no idea how people go through this process if they do not have flexible jobs.

We are now to the point of lists, lists, and more lists. Wednesday is my last day at work and I am looking forward to being able to focus on getting us out of here. We are eating through our food and plan to give any open things away at the house cooling party this Saturday. Anything not yet opened will be dropped off at some sort of community kitchen on Thursday. We will be out of the house from Friday until Monday for the termite tenting and out of the house for good the following Thursday. We will be flying out either Saturday or Sunday. If you live locally and have an extra bedroom, you may be hearing from us soon.

And then everything will just settle into place

I do not deal well with uncertainty. This whole process of doing the cross country job hunt and selling the house has been a leap of faith to a certain extent. For most of my life, when I have made a decision to do something, it has all panned out. The stumbling block was making the decision, not making it happen. Last week, minutes before getting the call from our realtor that there was an offer on our house, there was an email from the hiring partner at a law firm in Boston where I had interviewed the week before requesting contact information for references. Being the superstitious person that I am (I am a scientist, we are the most superstitious group that you have ever met), I did not want to tell people about the interview or request for references for fear of jinxing the situation. Besides, if you tell people that you had an interview, you have to tell people that you did not get the job if things fall through.

Well, today, it all came together. I was offered a job at Edwards Angell Palmer and Dodge, an east coast law firm with the largest portion of their IP practice in Boston. I am very excited, although the thought of closed shoes is a bit disturbing. All of the people that I met at the interview were wonderful. There is a certain amount of learning that I need to do, and the best place to do it is at a law firm. I will be starting at the office on Federal St, but by early 2007, the Boston office will be consolidated into a single building next door to the Prudential Center in Boston.

There is still much to do with the move, and now I am wishing that I had given notice to quit much earlier than August 24, but there are many things that I need to accomplish before I leave. When I talked to my sister Chris today, she commented that things always went well for the two of us. Within a week there had been both a house and a job offer. There was no clear explanation, but we were not going to ask why. We were just going to be happy for our good fortune and keep moving forward from there.

Supernova (STP TR) by Sue Hopkins

Sue Hopkins is one of those people that you would have to hate if she were not such a cool person as she is far too talented in too many ways. She is an artist (http://www.suehopkins.com), an athlete, a great cook, and an amusing writer. She also prides herself as being the biggest slacker junior faculty at UCSD Medical School. She is just smarter than most of the people there so she can get away with it. I thank Sue for her kind words about me, but it is just that I am more obstinate than even I know some days. And I completely concur with her that Ian is the greatest.

If you are feeling easily offended today, you may not want to read this. There are some bad words, but if you are at this blog, you probably have heard them all before. Enjoy!

__________________________

Supernova (by Sue Hopkins)

"15 miles, that's nothing. You could do 15 miles dragging yourself
along the road with your lips"-Ian.

After riding the Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic I know three things:
1. Ian is the greatest
2. Colleen is a goddess. And
3. Red Bull gives you wings.

Here I am, it's 7:00 in the morning and we're somewhere south of
Seattle in the middle of seething mass of cyclists all with one rabid
goal on their mind. Ride to Portland. The guy next to me is making
me nervous. He's got this stupid looking carbon fiber Specialized,
tarted up with tri bars, he's riding like he's a sine wave and I can
just tell he's a Fred looking to eat some gravel. Mr. gravel breath
himself. The epitomy of a Fred, actually. Every sport has at least
one name for punters. When I ski patrolled in Banff we called them
gorbies, at least until the ski area management decided that use the
term was grounds for dismissal. Gorbies, gumbies, noobies, choads. In
cycling, punters are called Freds. As in Fred Flintstone. So when I
told Ian I was thinking of riding the STP in honor of my departed and
then reconstructed left ACL, the first thing he said was "You know
its full of Freds".

I know. I retired from bike racing years ago, when I decided it was
time to grow up and get a real job, and I stopped riding altogether
when I discovered climbing. I have to admit that my first thought
last July, after standing up from a drop knee and feeling my left
knee give a huge sickening pop was "Shit. Now I'm going to have to
ride my stupid bike again". I've stayed peripherally involved in
cycling over the years and a couple of the athletes I've coached have
done pretty well. Ian was one of them. My athletes consult me about
everything from what breakfast cereal they should eat, to the type of
intervals they should do. On the other hand, my friends won't even
take my advice about how to ride a paceline. It's the curse of
getting old. I'm reduced to riding with Freds and they think I'm one
of them. I AM one of them. Dang.

Ian stopped racing, moved from San Diego to Seattle and got a job,
because of some woman. The woman's gone, but the job remains and Ian
is still in Seattle. "I know about the Freds," I said. "I'm a Fred
myself, and I'll be riding with some Fred friends of my own. In fact
we'll be a veritable constellation of Freds". I couldn't stop.
"Riding in a galaxy of Freds. Why we might even be part of a whole
universe of Freds". Ian says " Just hope you're not a supernova of
Freds". I hope so too.

So when I decided that as part of my knee rehab that I needed a goal
and I chose STP because I'd never ridden my bike that far even at the
peak of training, Colleen decided she'd join me. Colleen doesn't let
little details like she doesn't even own a bike and she's never
really ridden one, let alone 204.4 miles in a single day deter her.
She registered for STP in January and I did the same. Me, I'm easily
daunted, however and when I got my bike out of the garage, knocked
about 10 pounds of dust off it, found my old shoes (that Ian said
looked like they'd gone through re-entry) and teetered off up the
street, newly released from crutches with a fresh set of zippers on
my knee I couldn't see how I was going to ride around the block let
alone a double century. But Colleen shelled out a whole 300 bucks at
Performance, and came home with some hybrid kind of a thing and we
were off blazing around Mission Bay, all 8 miles of it at 10 or 11
mph. A couple of weeks later Colleen upgraded to clipless pedals,
which gave her some trouble and although our ride were regularly, and
I do mean regularly, punctuated by ACK, Fuck, crash we gradually
worked our way up to 40 and 50 miles. At least Colleen put up with
my bitching about riding in a straight line and pointing shit out on
the road and drafting, and although the ACK fuck crash continued, it
was mostly falling over at stop lights. (ACK fuck crash).

However somewhere in the middle of our (ACK fuck crash) riding
Colleen planned a wedding, got married, went on a honeymoon, and
decided to sell her house and move to Boston. I figgered I was off
the hook for STP and although my longest ride peaked at 106, I was
fed up with spending my weekends riding my damn bike and I bailed. I
was pretty sure Colleen was going to bail too and our rides settled
down to little 30 milers because that's all she had time for. She'd
also been too busy to learn some of the basic skills. I thought she'd
need like how to change a tire, or more importantly, eat while
riding. And of course there was still ACK, fuck crash.
So how did I get into my little constellation of Freds, in the middle
of a galaxy of Freds, part of a whole universe of Freds riding from
Seattle to Portland? Colleen as it turns out was too stubborn to
bail, and she'd recruited a whole bunch of our very own Fred's who
were somehow under the impression that we were going to ride this
whole thing together. Yeah right. I was still bailing. I couldn't
imagine doubling my longest distance, and besides I wasn't up for
looking after anyone else than myself. But then Ian said he'd drive
the course to meet us along the way, and Colleen after I ranted at
her for a while about learning to eat and fix flats said, "Look. I've
never ridden 100 miles before. If I can't ride further than that
without risking myself or other people I'll just get in the car."
What a novel concept. I didn't need to be sure of finishing, all I
had to do was get on my bike in Seattle and get off whenever I felt
like it and if that was Portland fine but if it wasn't all I had to
do was pick up the cell phone I'd borrowed, call Ian and get in the
van.

I'd like to tell you all about the ride but I can't really, since I
don't remember much. The day before, after arriving in Seattle, we
spent a bunch of money to make us feel better. Ian absolutely
insisted I buy some Red Bulls. I'd only tasted one once, and man
those things are gross. "Those things are vile," I said. Ian only
said, "Promise me this, when you are ready to quit, drink one and
then ride another 20 miles. Then you can quit." We left at the BBCOD
(before the butt crack of dawn), and launched off into the dark to
ride to the start of the course. Dan and Peggy who'd both done it
years before, me, Colleen, and Bob wearing his Spongebob square pants
jersey that his kids had given him. We were sent off by Ian who only
commented "Awww look at you, you have your little Fred numbers on and
everything". At least we didn't have those goddam rearview
mirrors-the universal Fred insignia.

Of course everyone took off like a bat out of hell and 20 miles in,
it is just me and Colleen drifting along in this giant Fred Universe.
Actually I felt like a planet, with my little moon Colleen hurtling
along through space behind me. By thirty miles or so we'd found this
nice couple on a tandem seemed to be riding in a straight line and
there we were with Mr. Gravel-breath riding his sine wave beside us.
Yikes. He's yapping on about how many centuries he's done and how
much riding he's done yappa yappa yappa, and I'm sure he's going to
crash. I was so sure I was just about to suggest we stop, and give
him 5 minutes to get further up the road, when we hit a left hand
corner. He's to the right of me and as I move over to give him room
to make the turn, I watch him look right at this large piece of
plastic, like a trash can lid on the road and decide to jump it. Its
one of those things that happens in slo mo, I see him look at it,
register it, ride right at it and launch himself over the bars.
Hard-hearted I am. That guy was looking for an opportunity to crash
and he just found it. I look back: he's still conscious, he's sitting
up. I look ahead: there's one of the Goldwing guys who is patrolling
the course. It's the perfect excuse to keep riding, I ride up to
them tell them about the biff, and we keep on our inexorable exodus
to Portland.

There are some amazing sights on the way to Portland. I'd been told
about them but you never really believe them until you see if for
yourself. For example, some really really fat women ride the STP. I
mean fat, really, massively, fat. I'm not talking about a little
overweight here, I'm talking F.A.T. Belugas on Bikes. 300 pounders
and more. The amazing thing is you pass them about 120 miles down the
road and you think to yourself how did they get here? When did they
start? Yesterday? The day before? All power to them. Then there are
they guys on recumbents, and various human powered vehicles that I
would hesitate to call a bike. They must all be Boeing engineers.
Its really strange if one of them passes you because the earliest
inclination that you get of their approach out of the corner of your
eye is some feet moving up near your head. Yikes. Guys on mountain
bikes, fixed gears, the 1956 one speed Raleigh with the coaster
brakes and fenders, skateboards, inline skates, guys in gym socks,
dungarees and sneakers. All on the road between Seattle and Portland.
It also feels like every cyclist hating red neck who owns a pickup
truck is also on the road between Seattle and Portland. Generally
speaking the road hazards are excruciatingly well described in the
handbook. There's inch by inch beta, pointing out rough road, bad
railway tracks, potential traffic etc etc. The red necks don't really
have justice done to them though.

Somewhere near Spanaway our little constellation reformed and we were
all together again. The weather was nice, we had a pretty good tail
wind, but despite this I wasn't having a good day. I just didn't feel
good on my bike. My ass hurt, my shoulders hurt, my legs hurt, I just
could not get comfortable on the bike. We hit Centralia the 100 mile
mark and I said to Colleen- your first Century, now we only have to
do it one more time and we're there. I couldn't imagine doing it
again, so I focused on riding 150 miles since I'd never done that
before. Its beautiful rolling terrain but you don't really look at it
much, mostly you try to focus on trying to stay focused and riding
the wheel in front of you. I hadn't exactly been doing a lot of work,
mostly I'd just been sitting in feeling miserable, trying not to
hurl, and wondering what I was doing riding my stupid bike again.
Colleen and I decided that if we hurled, that was our cutoff
point-we were going to bail. I really wanted to bail, but I was going
to be goddammed if I was gong to bail before Colleen. No fucking way
was I going to quit before her, so mostly I was just wishing she
would quit so I could stop. Or that I'd hurl, so I could stop. Or She
would hurl and then we could stop. I alternately look at Dan's back,
Peggy's back, Bob's back. Over and over and over.
After hitting the 150 mile mark, I decided I couldn't be anymore
miserable so I took two Aleve and deployed a Red Bull. I could barely
choke it down. Ian looking at me said "aw come on its only 50 more
miles. Even if you only ride 15 miles at a time that's only 2 more
stops. 15 miles. You could do 15 miles dragging yourself along by
your lips". I had this vision of me like that guy in monty python
armless, legless, toothless, gumming myself along the road.
We gummed out of there, and then a miracle happened; I started to
feel good. No. More than good - great. I go to the front. I start
pulling. We charge over the Longview Bridge, described in detail in
the guidebook as being a hazardous 5.10 move (really only 4th class)
and I hear this little voice behind me. It's Colleen. She says "we're
going to make it- I am a goddess" Poor Colleen there's been a few ACK
fucks behind me, but miraculously there have been no crashes. I
don't want one now so I bark at her "Its not over, focus. Don't think
about the end, think about now". By the time we see Ian again at 170
miles I'm exuberant "Gimme more Red Bulls. They're great I can't
believe how good I feel" By the time I'm well into my third one I
ask Ian "so what's this going to do to me tonight? Am I going to be
awake all night?" Ian says "I don't know I've never had 3 red bulls
in one day before. Maybe your head will explode. " I hastily put the
4th I've just started, down.

And that's it. 2 Aleve and a couple or four Red Bulls and you can do
anything. Anything. Thanks to Ian, we fly into Portland a short time
later on our little Red Bull wings, not on our gums, not on our hands
and knees but on our wings. Me, Dan, Peggy, Spongebob Squarepants and
Colleen the Goddess. Our own little constellation of Freds, that
started in Seattle and somehow found themselves in Portland,-a
constellation not a Supernova.

Finally, an offfer

Jason and I had decided that it was time to move east-- house sold or not sold, jobs or no jobs. If we wanted to be employed in Boston before January, we would need to be out there by September. We asked our realtor for the name of a gardener who we could trust to take care of the yard after we were gone. I told the people at work that I would be leaving by early September. We are fortunate that we can stay at my parents' place when we get out east. They will be in Ireland for half of September and then leave for Florida in October. We will have a place to stay and a car to drive. Worst case scenario, I would pull money out of the equity line and make house payments with that. Not ideal, but certainly not the first time that it had been done.

Last Sunday it was the full court press to sell the house. I was at the Pride Festival working the neighborhood booth to sign people up for the tour of homes and hand out fliers for houses for sale in the neighborhood. Jason was home and attentive enough to notice some people looking at the fliers and the for sale sign. He invited them in to look at the house. They liked what they saw, especially the mother who made comments to her daughter in Spanish not knowing that Jason understood. When they left, the mother made a point of saying to Jason in English how much she liked the house.

You have to understand. Since we put the house on the market two months ago, at least five other houses have gone on the market. Based on last year's sales, that was more than a year of inventory, and fewer houses will be sold this year than last. To have someone come and look at the house and say good things was huge.

Tuesday our realtor Lori called me at work to say that there had been an offer on the house. It was the people who Jason had invited in on Sunday. The offer was low, but Lori wanted to get together as soon as possible to discuss the offer. A few hours later, the plot thickened. A realtor who had previewed the house on Friday wanted to bring his client by Tuesday afternoon.

Lori came by Tuesday night to discuss the offer. The offer had come in Monday night after the close of business. The person making the offer, Sandra, was asking for a response by Tuesday at 6:00 PM. As we were meeting with Lori at 7:00 PM, Sandra was going to have to wait for her response. There was still one person who had looked at the house twice. There was the person who the realtor had brought by earlier that day. There was also the tour of homes on Sunday. We accepted the offer with the option to accept another offer within three days of Sandra accepting our offer. Her offer was low (and her realtor would have been doing her a disservice if she did not tell Sandra to put in a low bid), but her finances were all in line, and she was a teacher. She wanted to close by August 31, before classes started. She had only taken a day to get in an offer, and she was serious about wanting to expedite the process. She had also made an offer too late on another house and lost it. She had friends in the neighborhood. All of the information indicated that an offer that she made would likely go through. Her realtor was also unhappy about the contingency that we would be able to accept other offers.

Lori spent the next day on the phone trying to figure out if there were any more offers waiting to happen. As it turned out, there were not. By the end of the day, we removed our contingency and sent our counter offer. Sandra's realtor initially told Lori that she would be meeting with Sandra either late Wednesday or early Thursday. Lori called Thursday morning to say that Sandra would not be meeting with her realtor until Thursday evening. Needless to say, the day dragged on endlessly. An offer arrived after the close of business, so we would have to wait until Friday morning to find out what the details were.

Lori called Friday morning with the good news. The counter offer was higher than we had expected, and the close was still going to be on August 31. Jason and I were both home packing to head off to Vegas for the night to go see Ka, one of the many Cirque du Soleil shows that are out there. We stopped by her office on the way out, looked at a calendar to lay out all of the important dates, signed the paperwork, and took off to Vegas. Needless to say I spent all 5 hours of the drive making mental lists of all of the things that would need to happen between that day and the end of the month. In California, the buyer gets 16 days to rescind the offer for no reason. That would bring us to August 20. We would have to have the house tented for termites and inspected before escrow could close. That takes three days, so we would need to be out by about August 26. That would mean that I could barely give two weeks notice at work, but they have known for a while that I am leaving.

At this point, the schedule looks like I will be done August 24. I will get everything ready to have the house fumigated which will be done on August 29. After the fumigation, we will put the rest of what is left in the house in one of those PODS containers so that we can ship it, store it out east, and move it to our final desination when we buy a house out east without having to unpack or pack in between. We will be crashing with friends out here until about Labor day. Seems to be silly to not allocate a few days in the event that close is pushed off a day or two.

That is all of the information that there is to share at this point. I will be sailing Wednesday, climbing on Saturday, and helping some friends to move on Sunday. The job hunt continues. I am feeling much more settled now that the house sale seems to have fallen into place. The thought of a house payment with no income was a bit too much to tolerate.

We will try to keep the blog updated even if we are bad about email, so check here if you do not hear from us otherwise.

Time out to Con

I dragged Colleen to the Comic Con the Saturday after she got back from STP. It was a fine day to spend in air conditioning, as this was one of the hottest days during a prolonged stretch of blistering temps.

Got to meet one of my idols, Ray Harryhausen, Stop-Motion Artiste and all-around geek god. He animated my namesake movie, Jason and the Argonauts, (remember the skeletons that grew from hydra teeth?). Getting waay up there in age, but he still made a bunch of appearances and signed stuff for people.

Also got in on the Frank Miller autograph session. This was a result of a lottery, which I did not win. Lesson for the kids: Perserverance Pays. I hung out in front of the line, stopping by the guard every so often to let him know that I was serious about getting Mr. Miller's sig. I finally clinched it with 15 minutes to go in the signing, and a few people had idiotically not realized that they had won the lottery. I played my trump card--A copy of Daredevil #158 that was his first major gig as an artist. The guard saw it, melted, and gestured the girl over for a wristband. He snuck me in, and I think that FM actually recognized me from a meeting two years ago. That year, he and Neil Gaiman did a combined signing for which I was totally unprepared. I didn't bring anything of note, and ended up having to buy something at the Con to get it signed, when I had at least a dozen worthwhile Frank Miller items at home.

So the end of the journey came when I slapped down that comic in front of him, he looked up at me and said "Where'd you get this old thing?"
"I was about to throw it out..." I quipped, and then shut up. He signed, badda bing, I was out. I remembered to thank the guard profusely, and offered him a beer. No need, he said. Good to know that preparation and human courtesy can win out over a random drawing.