Keanna turns 10

What fun, this evening at UNO's we celebrated Keanna's turning 10 years old.  The food was great, the family got to catch up and we were all suffering from allergies right now.  The wind started to blow this afternoon which only made it worse.

This morning I played with man toys outside.  First I moved the motorhome forward on the street, then I parked the box trailer on the street, then I moved the tow dolly back beside the house using a hand truck to guide it, lots of back strain and hard work on that part.  Then using the Civic I hooked up the boat and backed it into its place beside the garage, then hooked the box trailer to the motorhome.  Wow, what a bunch of work it turned out to be.

I had appointments today in Antioch and then in Hayward.  Both were nice houses but the Hayway hills house was spendid, panoramic views from the top of a mountain, looked new all the way through, great agent met me there and she was a wealth of knowledge.

Then to Whole Earth Foods for lunch and to begin picking up some things for the campout this weekend.  I've not found everything on Jo's list yet but I'm working on it.

So now its once again bed time and I can't wait.

Love to all

Tim

The wait staff sing happy birthday

 

Smiling birthday girl, to bad

she cannot eat the desert, it goes to Kallie since Keanna is allergic.

Kallie and her mom have a special moment

 

Keanna enjoys a special gift from her mother and father.

Multi tasking

Good evening, this process of doing several things at nearly the same time is interesting at best and stressful at worst.

At 3 am this morning I found myself totally awake, it was a warm night, I had accidentially sipped some iced coffee during the evening without thinking.  So after a bit of checking to see if I was really not going to be going back to sleep anytime soon I crawled out, came down and wrote two reports, at 6 am I went back to bed and slept until 7 and I've not been sleepy today at all.  Very strange.  Of course I did not eat last night before bed, for a change I was good.

At 10 I was inspecting a home in Tracy and the renter talked the entire time I was there, pretty amazing really.  Then I drove to Dublin but as I crested the Altamont traffic screached to a halt.  I never really knew why but for the next 20 minutes I watched as my on time turned into a disaster.  Fortunately the owner was there and was working at home so we were good.  In spite of only being a little place it was tough to measure, what they do for curb appeal can drive us crazy as we try to figure out what is living area and what is just fluff.

Once I was through there I headed home and got a call from the dog groomer saying she was at my house for the 1:30 appointment.  On my calendar the appointment was for 3 pm.  Anyway I told her to go in, find the dag and get started.  So when I got home she was working hard on Pooka and she was loving it.  This evening she looks great, $85 later and she shines, her nails are clipped and ground down, she is styling and smells so good.

Jessy was here and working hard cranking out work and finally went home early evening, she took the new ipod to see how the writing program works, she will write two reports, then launch them into the cloud, once at the office she will pull them back from the cloud and they become the appraisal in the computer.  All pretty amazing, if it all works out to save time, that part I'm not sure of yet.

This evening after shipping out a challenging one from the Golf and Country Club in Moraga I jerked off my shirt and went outside.  My goal was to load two paddle boats into the trailer I borrowed from Steve, it is a nice closed box trailer and will pull nicely behind the motorhome.

These were the steps I took.  1. drive Civic with box trailer on behind out of the RV parking space beside the garage, park trailer on street, then back Civic into the space and hook up the Tow Dolly and pull it out, park it in the driveway out of the way, then back Civic into the space and hook up to the ski boat which is parked deep into the space back by the rear deck, pull it out and park it on the street, then using the Civic hook up to the box trailer and back it deep into the space, then pull and drag the two paddle boats from the dock to the trailer, manhandle them into it and close the door, then pull out the Civic and trailer to the driveway.  Quit until morning light.

So now I'm tired and heading for magic sleep.

Good night one and all,

Love

tim

Learning to do new things

Good evening
I've been working with the new ipad and a program put out by Phoenix, its called an app and it lets one start an appraisal in the office, then launch it to to the icloud, when you are in the field with the ipad you can pull the started appraisal from the cloud, fill out details and then once you are done ship it back to the home office and you can include photos, sketch and all the details you want to include including a voice message.  Not sure how it will help but its certainly interesting and holds lots of promise for the future.  We will see.

This morning I rolled out thinking I was going to Fremont early but then the owner emailed saying the marine layer had the entire valley filled with fog so could I come later, so I sent later and arrived early, by then the entire bay was visible and it was pretty impressive.

On the way home I stopped at the grocery store and purchase something I've not tried for about 40 or 50 years, celery.  Frankly I despise the stuff but knowing I needed more healthy things in my diet I bought some, came home and tried it with peanut butter and I can handle it fine, I also got a huge sack of salad, romain mostly so it has some good in it, purchased fresh strawberries from the local fields, they are so good, fresh mushrooms, new peanut butter.  I'm taking a fresh stab at eating more healthy.  I stopped having bread in the house over a week ago and I've managed to survive without it, now I'm ready with little carrots, celery, green beans, pinto beans, brown rice, soy milk, steel cut oats, bananas.  For lunch I made the last half of the baked potato from the other day, covered it with green beans, a little rice, mushrooms and some low sodium soy sause.  I had a bit of cottage cheese along with the potato and it was all very good.

This evening I put strawberries, ice cubes, soy milk, some whey powder and a banana in the blender and the resulting smoothie was excellent.  Now I'm going to bed before I'm tempted to eat.

Managed to get the lawn mowed today, the sprinklers repairs and turned on for the season and some office work completed.

Sending love to all,

Tim

Sabbath evening

Dear Family and Friends,

Just back from celebrating Keanna's birthday with her friends at her home.  What a noisy and happy bunch they are, outgoing, bright, energetic and bursting with 9 year old ideas, whether it is playing and enjoying the new CostCo inspired play set in the back yard that Steve and neighbors constructed last weekend, or dressing up or singing or acting.  Its all wild and so much fun to observe.

This morning Kallie and I went to church, Kim is such an excellent teacher and has so much patience with the little ones.  Telling the story of David and his care for his sheep with lots of little sheep toys, little harps, sling shots, fake food for the sheep to eat and then snacks at the end of the program.

After we left the room we visited Sylvia who faithfully teaches her class week after week and engages the kiddos in lot of activities all the while getting the message across to them.

Kallie and I visited Sonic for lunch, sat outside in the perfect spring day and just had fun.  Then we drove back to Discovery Bay where I left her with her parents, I went home to rest.  Then at 2:15 we left in the van for a rollerskating facility in Antioch.  Some had skated before and zoomed around while other like Kallie were pretty new to it, there was a snack bar, nice helpers and the time passed quickly.

Then it was back into the van where the girls sang along with songs Nikki found on XM.  After we got home I again went home for a break, then back for the party which was great.

Now I'm home to rest up for tomorrow.  I'm to be in Fremont at 10 in the morning.  Fun fun.

Love to all

Happy Birthday, the 10th, to Keanna.

Tim

From the iPad

This is a test using the iPad.

Pretty cool

Tim

Multi purpose day

So it started by a nice walk to the park with Pooka.  She enjoyed getting out, we had the park to ourselves and the morning was perfect.

Came back and went to work but then realized I needed to get the deposit into the bank so made a quick run down to the bank and visited Starbucks while I was there.  Once I left I realized that it was a good time to buy a new tire for the bug so we went to Brentwood, the bug and I and $88 later we had a new tire installed, then a carwash to get some bugs off the window, then back home to do some more work.

At 1:35 I left for Redwood City where I had a 3 pm appointment.  I was not prepared for what I would find there.  The first clue was a home filled with musical pictures, sketches, a grand piano, guitars and a wonderful outgoing couple.  Turns out the gentleman has spent the last 40 years in the music department of Stanford, he is a world renowned classical guitarist, has trained under Romero, Sagovia and all the greats in Classical Guitar.  He has played with most of the world's leading orchestras as well as small groups.  Pretty amazing all that this guy has done, when he was deciding his future he was accepted at Columbia, Yale and Harvard at the same time.  He went to Columbia.  what an interesting time to hear his stories.  He and his exciting wife life in Redwood Shores, have a perfect home and were great to visit with.

Once I was finished I decided to ask my phone for the address of the nearest Apple Store.  It was in Belmont and in a few minutes I was busy purchasing a ipad mini with celular connection.  The people in the store were amazing and helpful.  Then as I was walking out of the mall I got lost and found the AT&T store, a place I would need to visit to have the ipad linked to my current account.  But I was hungry so I visited the Cheesecake Factory for some delicious food.  Then I made my way back to the phone store and found out that when one hooks up an ipad to a current account there is a $100 rebate.  So before long I had made the decision to go ahead and purchase a new iphone 5.  They gave me $105 for my old iphone, $100 for hooking the ipad up to the account so I ended up walking out spending slightly over $100 for a new case and a new iphone 5.  My monthly account only increased about $10 and my data was doubled in the new plan.  It all made sense so it was a rather expensive afternoon. 

My intention is to begin conducting the appraisal inspections using the new app which links to the appraisal program here in the office.  Once I am completed I can email the report to the office using the link, the cost is $1.00 and Jessy can begin the work of finishing the report.  I know there will be challenges as I switch to a new way of doing things.

It took awhile to get all the new links established and all the paperwork completed but I really grew to trust the owner of the store and he kept giving me discounts, 33% discount on a protective cover for the screen of the ipad, 33% discount on the new Otter cover for the new phone.

So that is my news and when Nikki called this evening I discovered that her call came through the new radio in the bug through the bluetooth system.  The phone had hooked up on its own.  pretty amazing and it stopped the ipad book I was listening to until the call ended.

Well saying good night to all,

Kallie and I are coming to church just a few hours from now.

Love

tim

Jessy is back in full force

How nice to have a stack of nearly completed reports on my desk this evening.  Wow that girl can crank them out and seems to enjoy doing it as well.

This morning I ventured over to San Leandro to see a home where both mom and dad have moved to assisted living and since they are no longer there their reverse mortgage comes to an end.  What a journey through memory lane for the son who showed me through the house.  He grew up there and had many little helpful comments explaining the house.

This evening I inspected a local property, so nice, pool, brick patio, clean interior with updating, just the kind of place one likes to see.

Well the weekend is coming soon and after an afternoon trip to Redwood city to see a place I'll be officially through for the week.  Today's mail was very nice to me so the house payment is made once again.  Got to be thankful for little things,   like money.

Love to all,


Tim