Happy Birthday!

When did I reach the age that I have to do the math to figure out how old I am? This Friday, I think I will be forty-three. Wow.

I didn't bring up my birthday to whine about how old I am. I wanted to tell the world how good Kitten is to me. A couple of weeks ago, I was having a bad day at work and she said "would it help if I told you what I'm getting you for your birthday?" I hemmed and hawed. I didn't want to spoil anything. She said she had been dying to tell me and I know what that feels like so I said "Ok."

Saturday, she is driving me to Smashville to see the Preds play the Redwings! I love me a Nashville/Detroit hockey game. I immediately got excited and started asking about tickets. She put the brakes on my enthusiasm. "Wait, there is more!" Sunday, she is flying me from Nashville to St. Louis to see the Cards play San Diego! I swear that girl knows me. I couldn't ask for a better birthday. I did make her promise that while in St. Louis we would go to Charlie Gitto's downtown for some Italian eats. I can't wait for this weekend.

Florida Bound

I accepted a job yesterday. Looks like I'm headed to Florida around the last week of April. The new position is offering a $3000 relocation bonus, so that gives me a little cash to help find a place to live. The picture above is a house we are interested in seeing, but it's price ridiculously low so I'm betting it's another case of Chinese drywall.

If You Want To Know

It's quite possible that I should update this thing more often. I have stories to tell and updates on my crazy world, but right now, laziness trumps the need to express.

We flew back into town yesterday after spending most of the week in Florida. It was quite a shock going from eighty degrees and sunny to forty degrees with a chance of snow. I'm not sure how much we accomplished. I had an interview and a site visit and we did a lot of house hunting.

The job hunt is sort of going well. I have a firm offer from one hospital, but it's nowhere near where we want to live. I don't think I'm going to take that one, but it's good to have the offer in your pocket when negotiating other offers. The interview at the second hospital went well. I got a phone call a couple of days later saying that they were definitely going to make me an offer, but I haven't heard back yet. The job is much closer to the gulf coast and seems to be a lot less stressful. On the negative side, it's a Monday through Friday job. I was hoping for three twelves. I have submitted my resume to a couple of other places but haven't heard anything.

With the job situation in hand, the next issue is to find a place to live. Kitten accepted an offer on her house and they are looking to close at the end of May so there is some urgency to the problem. We spent three whole days looking all over the bay area without any results. We did find one gorgeous house. Huge lot, enormous common rooms, four bedrooms three baths, lake front and just at the upper edge of our budget. We were so excited, we called Kitten's Dad and told him we would make an offer without even looking at the rest of the house. He called back pretty quick and told us the house had been built with "Chinese drywall." Huh? Turns out that between 2001 and 2007, there was a shortage of drywall and a significant amount was important from China. This imported drywall has a very high sulfur content and when exposed to heat and humidity, typical Florida conditions, it emits sulfur gasses that not only smell bad but can combine with moisture to form sulfuric acid. Putting the health problems aside, the stuff basically eats copper and silver. In short, all of the wiring, appliances, HVAC and mirrors need to be replaced and if you don't replace the drywall, the same thing will happen again. We were told that the cost of all of this for the house in question had already been estimated at over a hundred thousand dollars. So a house that was barely in our reach becomes financially impossible. I'd curse China, but not everything that is Chinese is caustic and a danger to your health (right Cindy?).

Everything else we looked at either didn't sing to us, or just wasn't worth what they were asking. The hunt continues.

Allrighty Then

I just couldn't take it any more and Kitten told me to quit, so I did. I put it my two week notice last weekend. If you do the math, that leaves one week to go. My plan? Well, I went ahead and sent my resume to a couple of hospitals late Sunday night. I figured since we will already be in Florida at the end of the month, might as well interview.

Both hospitals called me on Monday. Hospital one, on the East side of Tampa, wanted to do a phone interview. Since I had the day off on Monday, we set it up for that afternoon. Hospital two, on the West side of Tampa bay (15 minutes from the beach!), called me and asked a few questions, mostly about my relocation time line, salary expectations, and where I would be living.

I had the phone interview with hospital one that afternoon. It was very relaxed, more like a chat than an actual interview. I liked the director and while the job sounded like a challenge because they are suffering from growing pains, I would probably be a good fit. We finished up, but she didn't really give me any idea on whether or not I was a candidate.

Wednesday rolls around and hospital two called me back to set up a face to face interview. I told her that I'd be in town the third week in March, she gave me a time and I'm all set. I was feeling pretty good about the process. I applied for two jobs and got two interviews. Much better than my experience with the last job hunt.

Then I get a call on Thursday. I had to work, so I played phone tag with hospital one's recruiter all day. I guessed that they wanted to set up a face to face interview as well, but when I finally talked to the recruiter, she offered me a job! They wanted me to start April 4! As tempted as I was to accept, I told her that I had another interview at hospital two and hadn't even met anyone from hospital one or seen the facility. She said that we could set up a site visit for the week that I was in town, but that would mean I probably wouldn't start until May. I was much more comfortable with that timeline.

So, next week, I go to Florida with one job in hand and an interview for another. Kitten and I agree that if all things were equal, we would prefer hospital two. We shall see. We are going to do some house hunting that week, see her Dad and hopefully squeeze in some beach time. Right now the plan is for me to go down and work if I accept a job. I'd find some temporary place to live until we settled on something more permanent. I can feel the sand between my toes already!

Well Damn

Double dog damn. It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted. We were all set to close March 21st. We had the inspections done, the owner had done the repairs the we asked him to do, insurance was settled, all we had to do was have the mortgage company we were going to use send an appraiser out to the house.

The long and the short is that the appraisal came in at $40,000 less than our offer and $80,000 less that the original asking price last June. The sellers realtor tried to get the appraiser to increase the value based on research she had done, but with the market in Florida like it is, the banks are wary and the appraisers have gotten a lot more honest. I remember a time when you could tell them what you wanted to borrow and they would make sure the house appraised at that value. No more.

So, the buyer came back and wanted to pay for their own appraisal. Kitten and I agreed that shopping for an appraisal sounded like a bad money decision, so we are gonna let this house go. I really like the house, but not enough to screw up my finances for the next ten years. Mostly I'm disappointed because I was ready to move to Florida.

We are going to go back down in a few weeks and look some more. I think we at least have a better idea of property value down there now and hopefully won't waste several hundred dollars on inspections and such.

I miss Florida and I never even got to move down there.