My last post was nearly a year ago now.  It isn't that I ran out of things to say or that I wasn't doing anything.  In fact, just the opposite.  I had too much to do.  And none of it had to do with technology (unless you count job hunting).  2017 was a tough year.  Not all bad, just very grueling.  It started awful with the passing of our oldest pup, Reba, in February.  Then I was laid off from my gig at western digital.  That really wasn't a completely bad thing.  I had told my boss after the 2016 election that I was planning on leaving because my wife and I got fed up with the conservative nature of Colorado Springs.  He was very understanding.  There was no option for remote work, unfortunately.  So when WD was having a layoff he used that opportunity to get me a nice severance package to help me on my way.  And it really was a good deal for me.  I had plenty of cash to take my time and find someplace new.   Which I started doing the first of April.

The problem with wanting to move is knowing you will have to sell your house.  That means keeping it in a perpetual state of staging, waiting to put it on the market as soon as a job offer arrives.  I interviewed all over, mostly targeting Seattle, Portland, Austin and boulder.  Lots of interest.  Lots of interviews.  No offers.  I'm assuming (mostly, but not completely) because I was looking for relocation assistance.  This went on till late August when NetApp in Boulder made an offer.  Perfect timing as the severance package was starting to run a bit lean.  Time to get the house on the market.

Housing prices in Colorado are pretty high.  Selling your house normally means hiring a realtor to market it for you.  They get 3% of the sale price.  Toss in the buyers agent and that's another 3% out of our sale price.  With really high housing prices that's a really big chunk.  Too big.  So we started with a For-Sale-By-Owner.  There's a web site for that.  And it's not that hard to get started.  But it's hard to market.  Turns out FSBO's are not something realtors will look at much to bring you buyers.  And you don't end up in the MLS (a monopoly if ever there was one) so realtor's don't even know about you.  Zillow will post it but marks it like it's something to be wary of.  We got one bite.  And it was, as many are in military-based colorado springs, a VA loan. 

Ugh.  va loans are difficult.  The buyer has to bring a teeny-tiny amount as down payment, meaning they usually don't have anything extra.  VA inspections are tougher and any fixes come out of the seller's pocket.  No negotiation there.  Screw it.  No VA loans.  And we dropped the FSBO.  Time for a flat-fee listing agent.

A flat-fee agent charges a flat fee to list you in MLS.  They don't show your house.  But for the savings that's something we could do easily enough.  Our agent did a great job, including providing a guiding hand through the whole sale process.   Colorado, technically, doesn't allow a flat-fee service with limited services but she gets around that by basically doing everything a normal listing agent would do – for way less.  And so we sold our house.  That took another 2 months to complete.  In the mean time I'd started work in Boulder, was commuting up on Monday and back on Friday (lots of cheap hotel points accumulated) and helping the wife get the house ready.  Then came the move.

We hired a truck but no movers.  Our mistake.  We found someone at the last minute, who managed to find two more guys who hired out for day work.  They did a great job, but I worked 3 days straight (okay, a few hours sleep) filling the truckS (multiple, we needed a second one, we discovered as we're loading the first).  We got out about 1/2 hour before the signing of the sale, exhausted to the point of barfing.  We drove both cars, dragging U-Hauls, with the dogs up to Superior, CO to a Residence Inn were we lived for a month trying to find a new home.   About 5 weeks later, after much negotiating, we closed on a new home in south west Broomfield.  Now we're into late November, just before Thanksgiving.

We start unpacking and everything is going well.  We're still exhausted but gotta get settled in as quick as possible:  my wife hasn't been able to work since April!  Her business is run out of the house and she has no space set up to work.  Not to mention our daughter is coming to visit the first week of January. So we're rushing to get everything done as the holidays fly towards us.  We're moving along, my week off from work for the end of the year is one day away and then:  our Bailey, now the oldest surviving pup at 14, has a stroke.

The weird thing about dogs and strokes is that dogs recover from them much better than we do.  Bailey was nearly lifeless four days before Christmas.  Just her eyes moved.  We didn't have a vet yet.  We scrambled to get her body into the back of the car, drove to one vet (my wife nixed) and then another.  That vet examined her and said, “Let's give her a chance.”   He gave us meds, starting with steroids.   A week later she was about 90% back to normal, but with an incontinence problem.  It's taken 3 more weeks, and trying a variety of drugs and hormones, to get that under control.  And now she's walking around better than before she had the stroke.  We're amazed, relieved, exhausted.  That first week after the stroke I had to dead-lift a 90lb dog four or fives times a day to take her to potty or to the vet.  On the bright side, I got in shape quick.

So here we are, the third week of January 2018 and all my wife and I can say about 2017 is:  good riddance!  2018 will be better, though we know Bailey is old and may not see another new year.  But she's happy.  And so are we.  We're out of Colorado Springs, into a dog friendly neighborhood with a new house and a great new job.  Life is good.

So now, back to that list of things to do in 2017….