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So we’ve gone and done it. I should say, my wife did it, for the third time, this past Halloween. It was once again an awe-inspiring experience participating in the delivery of our third daughter.

There’s an interesting video over here at CNN which caught my attention. It’s titled “Little Baby, Big Stress”. It has some interesting suggestions on how to manage stress once a baby is born.

One particularly amusing concept is scheduling a date once a week with your spouse. It might be nice to live in some parallel universe where there were people nearby whom we could trust to watch our children so we could indulge in such activities. As it stands, we’re more or less on our own. We did have some family in town for a couple of weeks, during which time the offer was extended for us to go out to dinner or something, just the two of us. We opted to stay home and relax. At least, that was the plan. As for me, I was physically incapable of relaxing, sleeping, eating, or thinking coherently. When the pediatrician gave us an A-plus, said baby’s doing great and that he had no advice for us since we seemed to be doing everything right, I was speechless. Had I attempted to say anything, it would probably have been unintelligible nonsense, my parenting privileges would no doubt have been stripped from me immediately, and my wife and baby would have been sent home with a police escort. It would have been a strait jacket for yours truly.

We nearly boycotted Thanksgiving, but I decided to take advantage of the fact that, dare I say it, I was beginning to feel human again. So I cooked a turkey, complete with stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, the works. I stared at our third perfect little girl. I reminded myself of how lucky we are. My wife reminded me of how lucky we are. I think I’m even starting to feel lucky. It’s one thing to intellectualize it or hear it said over and over, but it’s another thing entirely to feel it. I admit that I’m very selfish that way. I have this need to feel good about things, to enjoy life, to have a good time whenever and wherever possible. I don’t want my daughters seeing their father reduced to a neurotic mess of a human being and thinking that’s what they have to look forward to when they get older and accumulate responsibilities.

Life is good right now, despite the string of recent and current events which are providing endless entertainment for my family, friends and coworkers.

Tags: Family, General, Motivation, Real Estate, Writing by Keith
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Just up and relocated the entire family to the Capital District. That would be the region surrounding the capitol of New York State. Most non-New Yorkers have no clue as to what that means. Most non-New Yorkers, including many who have visited the state, consider New York to encompass the four block radius surrounding St. Mark’s Place in Greenwich Village. That would be located on Manhattan Island. That’s right, Manhattan is an island. So is Long Island. Queens is a borough. New York City has five of them (boroughs, that is). Queens, and Brooklyn (another borough) for that matter, both are part of Long Island, though neither Queens-ites nor Brooklynites seem to grasp or admit that. I grew up in Queens, which is not necessarily relevant, depending on who happens to be reading this.

Now we’re in a renovated textile mill, supposedly the largest textile mill in the world, which has been converted into loft apartments. My one-way commute has been reduced from 40 miles to 4.5 miles. The kids are loving it so far. The architecture around here is fascinating. Supposedly, real estate around these parts hasn’t suffered quite as much of a blow as elsewhere. Still, there are those back on Long Island who rolled their eyes at me when I told them we were moving… UPSTATE. We are now ‘upstaters.’ The key phrases regarding Upstate New York vs. ‘Downstate’ are “your money will go so much farther,” “such an easier pace,” and “what about when it snows?” Right now we’ll just go ahead and enjoy the autumn weather.

Tags: Family, FrontLines, General, Motivation, Real Estate, Writing by Keith
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Turned 40 last week. Today’s 40 is yesterday’s 20, or something like that. I feel pretty good aside from the general malaise, which is also a good thing, I think. Self reflection is inevitable at this point. Maybe it’s not inevitable, but here it is. I’m reflecting. Crain’s NY Business Magazine, which I often read because it’s left on the bathroom floor at work, has its “Forty Under 40″ piece listing those wildly successful “Under 40″ people who, we would assume, have managed to make boatloads of money and earned the respect of the community and gobbled up millions of acres of prime real estate and have the words “Chief” and “Officer” in their titles. I’ll have to put Made it into the Crain’s ‘Forty Under 40′ on my list of things I didn’t do before I was 40. Thankfully, it wasn’t one of my life’s ambitions. On the other list, however, I’m finding there are some truly great things. Here they are, in no particular order:

• Got married
• Became a dad… TWICE!!
• Bought my first house
• Got a real estate license
• Got a college degree
• Took the LSAT
• Played music onstage

OK, so it’s not exactly a comprehensive list, but it’ll have to do for now. I’ve got to go make plans. There’s plenty to do before I turn… 40 1/2.

Tags: Family, General, Motivation, Real Estate, Writing by Keith
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We needed to fix the bathroom. Gia ripped the soapdish out of the wall a month or so ago, and since then, it’s been patched up with duct tape and a plastic trash bag. Shortly thereafter, we found a flyer in the mail advertising one of those one-shot, shower/tub shell deals, so we decided to give it a try. The owner of the place showed up last Saturday to give his shpiel. We liked him. He made the sale. They were due this morning.

Nikki called me after I got to the office. She was there with Jose, the one guy they sent to do the job. When he started pulling down tiles, it became apparent that the job was going to be a little more complicated. I asked her if Jose was panicking. I heard her ask him, “Are you panicking?”

“Yes, I’m Spanish,” he replied.

Turns out Jose did a great job. Of course, it rained all day, so he had to do his sawing and bending and whatever else in our living room, so Nikki’s busy cleaning up toxic dust right now. We’ll also have to fix the brand new gaping hole in our outside wall before a rainstorm comes and… well, I won’t know that until I get home. It was Jose’s first week, so he probably worked extra hard to make a good impression, so at least we have that going for us. That, and the fact that the house hasn’t caved in. I guess we still have a bathroom, so that’s also a plus.

Tags: Family, General, Real Estate by Keith
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So I decided to refinance. My original arrangement on the first home purchase was a ‘piggy-back’ loan. That’s two loans, an ‘80-20,’ which totals 100, or 100%, meaning total financing. I’m sure this is common knowledge to most people who have gone through this, but to me, this was all new territory. For those of us not blessed with much, if any, savings, this is one popular method to compensate for closing costs. In fact, I ‘overfinanced,’ which means the total of both loans came to roughly 105% of the selling price of the house, which provided a little extra cash. There was no avoiding having to put money down. For this, I had to take out the maximum loan amount on my 401k. It took me six solid years to save enough in that account to be able to do any of this. In effect, that’s yet another loan. Good debt, bad debt, whatever, I’m in debt up to my eyeballs, but my family has a house. That’s the important thing. Enough history.

Closing on the refi took all of 15 minutes. The closing attorney came to my house. Sign here, initial here, sign here, etc. Nice enough guy. He represents over 300 banks. We talked a bit about the real estate market. He said that right now, “It’s nobody’s market.” Not even a buyer’s market. Nobody’s doing anything. He blames the government. He said something about the situation being fixable, all it would take would be for the government to raise interest rates, or something. I have no idea. I know we’re at war, gas prices are through the roof, and the president’s alienated virtually everybody. I know that house prices aren’t skyrocketing like the were a year ago. They’re even dropping in some areas, but that had to happen. Things were way out of control. Unfortunately, it’s more than a gold rush mentality that’s causing the market to ‘correct itself.’ There’s a war going on. That fact doesn’t seem to find its way into nearly enough conversations.

Tags: Family, General, Real Estate by Keith
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Too busy. If I can’t make or find time for a blog entry, that’s too busy. I’ve resolved to be consistent with my writing, and I’ve been doing OK, but still I’ve been missing days. If I’m that busy, so busy that I can’t even write a few lines, there’s a deeper issue. That means I don’t even have time to think. I’m multitasking myself out of the picture. It’s the ‘constant partial inattention,’ or ‘attention,’ depending on whether you’re of the ‘glass is half full or half empty’ variety. I can actually sense this state of partial attention. It’s like skimming over everything around me, people, conversations, projects, whatever I happen to be looking at is on the way to looking at something else, and when I get to the next thing, I’m already moving on. It’s too easy to allow this to be the norm. It might be exhausting, but I can’t sit still long enough to acknowledge that. This definitely feels like working harder, not smarter. Change is coming. I’ll make it happen, even if my impatient nature forces me to believe it’s not happening fast enough. It’s all a means to an end.

Looks like the heatwave is over. It culminated in a series of thunderstorms last night. I wanted to drive down to the beach to watch the fireworks, but it was late and we needed sleep. You could tell that’s where the action was, just beyond the tree line over the horizon. Gia woke up, but not for long. I’m glad about that. Thunderstorms used to scare the hell out of me when I was a kid. She’s much more resilient than I ever was. She says she gets scared about some things, but we can’t figure out what those things are. She’ll be watching Sesame Street, then out of nowhere, she’ll be standing in the hallway, saying “SKAY-UHHD.” Could be she’s just looking for attention, though I have to say, Sesame Street can be terrifying at times.

I think I really like this panography thing, so I decided to give it a try. Here’s a taste of what it looks like behind me while I’m working…

Note the hanging suit jacket. I needed a jacket once while I was at work, and I heard somewhere that it’s a good idea to have one handy, so there it is. That was almost three years ago, and I haven’t needed it since. It’s a nice conversation piece.

I have a nicer jacket hanging in the back of my car. My father-in-law said it’s a must if you’re in real estate. You never know when one of those deals might spring up. I think he travels with multiple cleaned-and-pressed suits in the back of his vehicle. I haven’t advanced that far yet.

Tags: Family, General, Motivation, Real Estate, Writing by Keith
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It’s hot. I slept on the floor in Gia’s room last night, under the new ceiling fan Nikki’s dad installed for us. There should be one in our room tonight. We have our air conditioner sitting in the garage. I haven’t put it in the window yet, and we haven’t really needed it. If this heat continues, I might have to bite the bullet. The kids are cranky, hence, we’re cranky. We went out to the North Fork yesterday and had lunch at the Seafood Barge, a decent restaurant on the Peconic Bay. It was nice. The ride there and back, however, was anything but. We had a nice time for the few minutes the kids weren’t screaming their heads off. Apart from that, I hardly had any weekend. The LIBOR orientation class on Saturday was an all day thing. It was informative, but not very entertaining. I’d probably feel differently if I had a couple of real estate deals under my belt, but all in good time. It’s always nice to be reminded of just how much you don’t know. At least there was air conditioning. There was also ‘official’ confirmation of the fact that the market is changing. I suppose when the the former president of LIBOR who also owns a brokerage and manages a ton of agents says that the market is changing, there must be something to it. Regardless, people will never stop buying and selling property. We hope.

Tags: Family, General, Real Estate by Keith
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It’s yet another Friday. This one finds us at the front end of a heatwave, supposedly. It’s pretty steamy out there right now, at least here at work. I hear the beaches are contaminated. All the rain we had caused some waste runoff. Yet another one of the disadvantages to not living somewhere like, say, Bermuda, not that I’ve ever been there, so I can’t say for sure. I’ll be spending all day tomorrow in my New Agent Orientation class. It’s a requirement for LIBOR membership, which is the local board of realtors. I’m hoping to find out exactly what this all means for me tomorrow. I’m hoping to find out something, anything, to justify my spending all day on a Saturday in some class somewhere I don’t want to be. Plenty of things I’d rather be doing, especially after an extremely busy week at work. I should remind myself that some people actually do this real estate thing full time.

I’m finishing up my water before hitting the road. The metallic taste is still lingering. It’s annoying, but bearable. It might be time to mix things up a bit and start incorporating some iced tea into the agenda.

My home computer is acting up. I had a triple-boot configuration going. I think it proved to be just a little too much at one time. I discussed the situation with my techie friends at work, and they were scratching their heads. I have a way of making them do that. Somehow, I manage to discover new and exciting ways to make computers stop working. At least, I do that to my home computer. I’m pretty good at keeping my computer at work up and running despite endless adversity. The problem is, my home computer is the one I really care about. I’ll obsess over it until I fix it. Until then, it becomes a Zen exercise for me not to allow it to interfere with my life. I didn’t lose sleep over it last night, so there is progress being made. I’m pretty sure I have a corrupt Master Boot Record. Story of my life.

Tags: General, Motivation, Real Estate, Technology by Keith
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Got in my car this morning, turned on the ignition, and was met with static from the radio. I looked up to see my satellite receiver missing. My fault. Shouldn’t have left the door open, and I should have parked in the driveway instead of half on the front lawn, half on the street like I’ve been doing. Looks like they also snagged a jar of change I had floating around the back seat. At least they closed the door and didn’t take anything else, not that there was much of value in there apart from the receiver and the change.

Nikki suggested I go to Starbuck’s, which I did. The Venti Black Eye worked great. I reminded myself that I still have a ton of CD’s in my car which I haven’t listened to since I got the satellite. So I blasted Slipknot down the L.I.E. Luckily, traffic wasn’t bad, otherwise I’d have had to switch to John Coltrane.

It was probably some neighborhood kids, but who knows. They’ll probably trade the unit in for some crack. I think they got about $1.25 in quarters I had in the change tray up front too. I do appreciate that they closed the door and all. I’m kind of surprised we didn’t hear them. So much for taking the rural neighborhood for granted. It’s one of those in-between neighborhoods on the North Shore, just a little too far from the city to attract the Manhattan business commuter crowd, and too far from the North Fork to attract the second-home farmland and wine country enthusiasts. So for now, we’re stuck in the middle, until we can afford to move in either direction. Looks like it’s time to set up a punk detection system.

Tags: General, Real Estate by Keith
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The water imbibing continues. My second liter and a half is sitting here, next to my assorted salad and hard boiled egg. Again, only two cups of coffee today instead of the usual three, and I’m buzzing as if I’ve had six cups, although definitely not quite as jittery. The whole morning was non-stop crazy busy, so it could be I’m amped up from doing so many things simultaneously, but I do think I’m noticing a difference. The metallic taste was back, but this salad is helping. I’m envisioning moving to some kind of herbal tea habit, though I’m not sure what kind yet. So many options.

Nikki’s dad is in town. He checked the spot where Gia ripped the soapdish out of the wall last week. We have it patched up with plastic garbage bags and duct tape. Nikki did a fabulous job of making it look slightly less ghetto than it really is. At least we can still use the shower. Apparently, we’re looking at a bigger job than we’d hoped, somewhere in the neighborhood of a grand. That means it’ll probably cost much more. Good thing I don’t have the money right now, otherwise it would be gone, down the drain along with the little winged ants we have to wash away every morning. There are some roof issues as well. We knew that there was something going on, but it’s great to have someone point it out definitively so you can feel that much more neglectful as you let the time slip by. At least the house isn’t going to cave in. Maybe that will be the next phone call.

Ava’s trying to stand up. Last week, she just started crawling. Next week, I predict she will launch herself to some distant planet. We’ll miss her.

Tags: Family, General, Motivation, Real Estate by Keith
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