The Life and Times of Alann

So for those who don't know we have moved from Ut and now live in Mo. We moved to Ut for me to go to school, we had planned on being there for 5yrs but through some hard work, luck and no summer vacation we were able to do 2 degrees in 4 yrs and finish early. Now all I have to do is get a job and start making money. The move out here was definitely no picnic, i won't go into too many details (if you want a longer story check out Becca's blog), but it suffices to say that it was very long and painful.

Some of the high lights include me sleeping on a pile of boxes the last night in Ut, because we packed the blow up beds, the truck radiator breaking down within the first 2 hrs of moving and a rainstorm at the end of the trip that I decided to pull over and sleep through because the truck was making an odd noise and it was 12:30 at night. The rest of the trip went as I expected it would with 2 kids, lots of pulling over and rest breaks. I was actually in another vehicle than the kids, but because they had to stop so often I was usually in front even though i was moving slower, so I can guess how it was going in the van.

It is good to finally be done moving and now we just have to unpack everything and settle into a our new lives. Internet access time is kinda limited right now because i am way busy trying to unpack and look for a job, but I should be able to post once or twice a week for now and hopefully more often once things settle into a routine.

This is the first night that I don't have to blog about any theft stories! Granted we still have to pack up the garage, but i think it was too messy for him to want to bother going through, so i think we are safe for the most part. Today we did some more packing and yard work to get the house ready for when we leave. We had a lady come by today and look at the house, she said the same thing that we hear every time. Wow this is the nicest house I've seen, but its kinda small. More and more I think about converting our garage into a second living area and just putting a carport off the front of it. We probably wont do it, but it is way tempting.

One possibly exciting thing that happened today is that our Fuji apple tree grew 3 offshoots 2 of which we where able to dig out and trim off. We are going to see if we can't get them to live and take them to Mo with us. We have been semi-joking about taking the tree with us, but if these shoots live then it will be like taking the tree and we will start a little grove somewhere in mo. Becca really wants a little fruit tree groove with 2-3 of a couple trees like apple, pear, fig, peach, and money. I personally am hoping for that last tree so i can just stay home and tinker around on projects. Well thats all for tonight, we have to get up extra early tomorrow and run errands.

Here should be the last submission of our little theft experience. This morning we went over to the public library at 10:30 am as per their requested time (we originally requested 10am) and we found a table to sit at and got all the documents ready to sign. Then we waited.... and waited.... and waited..... and waited. At 10:45 we started to call Janet and leaving her voicemails asking where she was and what was going on. We never get any response and both Becca and I are upset because they are very late for something very important and now it seems that they are ignoring our phone calls and have decided to no longer cooperate.

After 20 min Becca says we need to leave because we have other things to do today and apparently they are not coming. I being an optimist say "Maybe over slept her alarm. She does work nights now and maybe she wanted to try and get in a quick nap before meeting us." Becca said "yeah maybe" and left her a text saying to call us. As we are running errands in the car Becca's phone rings and it is Janet on the line. I pick up and she tells me that she is so sorry, she over slept her alarm and did not mean to miss our appointment. She seemed to honestly be upset and sorry for missing the appointment so we rescheduled with her for later after we are done with our errands. (My question is why didn't Ben wake her up and say it is time to go?)

Around 2:30 we told them we were home from our errands and to come over to the house to sign the paper work, which consisted of a second "Damages Done" document and a corresponding Promissory note. This is the new Damages document is the same as the first except that the payment dates and amounts have been listed and it no longer says we can go after them for financial compensation, however it says nothing about going to the law. It also infers that this will be enacted once all the payments have been made (in 2 months).

"This document affirms that the second party acknowledges responsibility of the first party’s claim of “damages done” and seeks to make the first party financially whole again with the agreed upon sum of $400 to be paid by 2 cashiers checks or money orders the first being to the sum of $100 to be paid no later than September 30^th 2010 and the second check being the sum of $300 to be paid no later than October 15^th 2010 as noted in the accompanying promissory note.

In return for being made financially whole again the first party agrees to not seek any more financial compensation for additional “lost/stolen” items against the second party upon the completion of payment. "

The promissory note is a standard print and fill out the blanks legal document that says they are responsible for paying us a certain amount by a certain date in certain payment methods and that if they default we can legally pursue them and they agree to pay all legal fees if that happens. It also says that if they want to pay off earlier than scheduled that they can and not be penalized, which is important to note because some of the loan documents people fill out have clauses making you pay fees if you pay off early (so check all your loan docs before signing). We also are not charging them interest, but can call the whole amount due immediately if they miss their first payment grace period.

However while we do have some open options to seek legal action Becca and I have decided not to pursue them for any other "lost" items unless they are well above $500, promissory note aside. That is because we know there are no more money stashes around the house to be found missing and that we have a $500 deducible for our home insurance policy so any other loss would need to be above that amount for it to be eligible for compensation. Also I don't think we have anything else worth over a couple hundred dollars that is worth stealing that hasn't already been accounted for. So I would say that if there is still more missing by now we have recovered 80%-90% of it (minus the $400) and that is a pretty good outcome for any theft case.

Becca says: Some people have been asking how long Janet knew Ben before running off and marrying him. I just wanted to clarify that they have been dating for at least a year, and much longer I think, and had planned on getting married back in July. That wedding date got pushed back to Sept. The "sudden" wedding that Alann was referring to was the fact that the wedding date suddenly got pushed up to August. It was a complete surprise to all but immediate family (which we are not). So it wasn't like she met him and married him within a week. Just the actual wedding date was a surprise. Alann says: I don't know if that makes her marrying him better or worse.

We also have made our first replacement purchase and bought me a new leather coat similar to the one stolen and luckily at the same price as the first. I hope that it is the first step to the real end of the torment that has been our lives this past week and that we can finally move on. While the story may hopefully be over, I hope many of you will continue to check mine and Becca's blogs from time to time as we enter into a new phase of our lives where we are renting out the house in UT, living in Mo and I try to start up my own full time Real Estate investment and management business and Becca does the same with her part time sewing store while trying to raise 2 kids. I hope there is no part 7 to this story, but if there is I will say so on Facebook, otherwise see you back here later for more news from The Life and Times of Alann: A collection of my ramblings, stories, rants and excuses to help pass the time.

So yes, the last story had a twist in it that no one expected or wanted, more money was found missing and our interactions with Janet and Ben were/are not over. Here is the latest in our story now. Becca has wanted to start a small online sewing shop that caters to young mothers who need things like burp clothes, blankets, hats and things. She was able to procure an amount of money (I'm not really sure how much) to enable her to start making her designs, prototypes and marketing strategies for her business when we move. If I had the website address I would post it so everyone could help us in this endeavor but it isn't up yet so you will just have to watch for the address to appear in my sidebar of this blog so you can visit it.

Anyways, she had $400 placed in a nondescript envelop, which was then placed in a locked safe box, which was then hidden under the bed and the key was on a key chain on her dresser under some stuff. Someone had enough time to go through and find everything they needed allowing them to steal the money. WOW! is all I have to say to that. There is no way I could be that patient of a thief, but I guess if you know your victim isn't coming home for a week you don't worry too much about it.

So we sent a polite and to the point letter to Janet letting her know what had happened and that we wanted to be compensated again for it. Because remember in the agreement we are allowed to come after them again for additional items of loss/theft. She sends a text back saying “what do you want us to do, we had to borrow money from my parents to pay last time?”

Of course my thinking is “I want you to take out a loan and get me my money back is what I want you to do!” But Becca and I both know that since we have had to come to them a second time that compensation is going to be harder for us to demand because Janet and Ben have gotten over their initial shock and aren’t going to be as willing to cooperate as they have been, even though the evidence is on our side. They also are going to be upset, like we are, that this situation just won’t go away

So we need to treat this situation delicately and keep the lines of communication open as much as possible. Because after this, the last thing we can do is go to the police. After talking it over we decide to give her some options such as paying it all now by cash or credit or setting up some payment plans. Yes I said payment plans and I will go into why we offered that later. Then we submit the message off to her at 10 pm (Mon) saying we need to know by 5 pm tomorrow (Tue) what they will do and then we wait, .... and wait, .... and wait .... and wait.

4:45 pm (cutting it close I’d say) we get this message and I am quoting here

“If we do pay you this four hundred, I’m asking that you to add to the contract that you won’t charge us for anything else that may turn up missing.”

What do you mean “if” you pay us and what “logic” do you have that says you shouldn’t have to compensate us for things you “lost”, and “may” turn up missing, do you know something we don’t? Needless to say I am a bit put off by this response as it seems my fears have been confirmed and they are starting to get a bit cocky about having to give us money.

We send a message back that we need to know things before agreeing to anything, like cash or credit payment, full up front amount or multiple payments, when we can collect and if they will accept a deadline allowing us to continue to look for more items as we pack the house instead of ending it here and now. We also point out that we found 3 BB holes in our office in the top corners, 1 with a BB still in it, hoping to shake a little of the cockiness out of them. Then at 5:13 pm we get this message (quoting)

“We would need a payment plan, my next paycheck, that I would be able to pay you with, I get the week of Sept 27^th. We admit to the property damage, and we are willing to come and help you fix it. We didn’t steal anything though.”

We now know that Janet has decided to stand with her husband and declare innocence, even though items were found in her car and the obvious time needed to steal these thing means it was someone staying in the house, and that she is a MORON. She then tells us that she will do 1 payment of $100 on Sept 27^th and $300 on Oct 11^th and that as far as the deadline is concerned, (quote) “I’m asking that this 400 be the last of it. We have willing worked with you on everything and have admitted to what we did do.”

Wow, so… suddenly we are burdening them with our problems and they have been gracious enough to humor us so far, but now they are tiring of it. I had no idea I was being such a jerk offering you the opportunity to do the right thing and replace items you are responsible for replacing and not involving you, your friend and your family in a police investigation.

At this point we stop talking to Janet and start thinking about what our real options are because after this they will no longer be willing to pay us financial compenstation. Do we go to the cops or do we agree to the terms. After talking about what is important to us and how we can best achieve the end we want, we decide to agree to their terms and draw up another contract and a payment promissory note.

This is as far as the story has gone for now, because tomorrow is when we will meet them again to sign the documents and finalize the transaction. Now I know some of you want to know why we agreed to payments, their terms and why we didn’t go to the police. I would love to tell you, but as they say, “the walls have ears” and until we receive all the money I am unwilling to go into detail on the matter, until after we have gotten the last check on Oct 14^th-ish, shall we say for Janet’s sake.

So Becca opens the the door and lets them in and they walk in kinda apologetic like and get about 3 feet into the doorway where they stop and I am standing in the middle of our family room with my arms crossed, like I have a habit of doing, now I pictured myself looking very stern but reasonable. My wife says i looked more like combination of these 3 pictures, so just keep that in mind while you follow along with the conversation

This document affirms that the second party acknowledges responsibility to the first party’s claim of “damages done” and seeks to make the first party financially whole again with the agreed upon sum of $1000 to be paid by cashiers check number . In return for being made financially whole again the first party agrees to not seek legal recourse against the second party for the agreed upon “damages done”. Separate action may be taken for supplementary “loss” and/or “harm” found after the signing of this document and not listed below in the “damages done” footnote.

The First party and the Second party willfully and knowingly agree to the terms found within this document and do so by signing their names in the provided spaces below.

1. The worst part is never knowing if you are going to open a closet or cabinet and find something missing
2. We think that it was only because of Janet that we got anything back and that it was Ben who took everything
3. Always lock up anything expensive when leaving town, regardless of who is watching your place, because you never know

Oh no, Becca just found more (a lot) money missing. Looks like we are not done with this yet, I guess stay tuned.

Before I go into detail on confronting Janet and Ben let me go into our basic approach tactic with Janet and for those of you who haven't seen me in a while or my wife our basic character and physical descriptions. This should help you understand some of the reasons we did what we did.


Because Becca is friends with Janet she is going to talk to her first and try to do things as friendly as possible (good cop) and as long as Janet cooperates I will just stay in the kitchen with Alex while Claire sleeps. Becca wants to try and make this conversation as pleasant and friendly as possible and wants to see if maybe her handling it will be enough to get things accomplished. If however things don't go as we want them I will take over and tell Janet how it is (bad cop). After all I have been up all night doing research on UT criminal law and am quite ready to tell them the title #- chapter # - section # of each law that pertains to this issue and what it means for us and to them.






So this is Becca my wife; sweet, caring, trusting and completely unintimidating, she is completely gorgeous and unassuming in every way. She will be the one to talk with Janet first.














This is me, 6'3" 265lbs, broad shouldered, goatee and constantly scruffy looking and according to my wife the "security bouncer" looking type. For those of you who remember me from high school my attitude is pretty much the same, happy, laid back, fun loving, just a great guy to know and hang out with. Same me just bigger and older with a little less hair on top.




So that is us and our basic 1st round tactic with Janet to get her to see some reason and get our stuff back. Around 7:45 we get a text from Janet saying she is going to be late because her car has broken down, but that she will try to be there as soon as she can. So I'm starting to worry that maybe she does have an idea of what is going on and she is going to bail on us and then it is straight to the police (which I was more than willing to do). However around 8:30 am she shows up and I take Alex into the kitchen with me while Becca sits down with Janet on the couch next to where I am.


Because I am trying to stay out of it for the first round I kinda stayed in the kitchen and couldn't hear much of the conversation, but I heard that the tone was really soft and meek with a bunch of this is missing and we didn't do it and I promise it wasn't us. The only thing she admitted to was the BB gun holes, saying that it was Ben and they would pay us for that damage. So finally after 4-5 minutes Becca says "Well I guess we have to call the police, can you give me your address please?" and Janet says sure and starts to text her husband for the address because she just moved there (his parents house) and doesn't know it yet.


Now this does not satisfy me at all. There as been a crime in our home by a welcomed person and 1 of the guilty party is sitting on our couch. There is no way I am letting them out of the house with just a small "where is our stuff" talk. So I step out of the kitchen after getting Becca some paper and a pen and say (paraphrasing) "Here is the problem, how long has Ben had that BB gun?"

Janet: He told me a couple months

Me: Well, he lied to you. We have the box for it in our closet where we put it after we found it in our recycling bin. He probably bought it with the money he stole from us out of these envelopes now on the counter which were hidden in a black notebook, which he had to go through one by one. Also the Guitar hero that was stolen was also scattered around the house in different rooms. Someone had to have the time to look around the house and to find all the parts. This wasn't a simple break in and take what you can see thing, this person had plenty of time to find the things they wanted and to take them.


We have talked to the neighbors and know that only you and Ben have been at the house and that Ben has used the truck a couple times and that the small amount of emergency gas money from the truck ash tray is missing. Since only the 2 of you had keys to the truck that means it was one of you who took it. (Some where in here she mentioned they had a friend over, but that they were with them the whole time, so they too couldn't have taken anything.)


I then tell her that even if it was the friend who took things, very doubtful considering the time needed and the fact that only a blind man would miss someone carrying drums out the door, she is still responsible for the theft because she was the one being paid to watch the house to make sure this thing didn't happen and she is an accessory to the crime if she knows about it. I then proceed to tell her that this is a 3rd degree felony punishable by 5yrs in prison and/or $5000 in fines if found guilty.


I then ask her if she ever let Ben stay in the house by himself for a long time and she says yes. So by now I can see fear and doubt creeping into her expression and I know that she is starting to take things seriously and wonder what her husband has been up to. So after what I considered logically and calmly talking to her about "how things are" we once again tell her she has till noon to see if maybe Ben borrowed something and forgot to tell us or if they can get a hold of their friend and see what can be done there, because if things are returned we are willing to forgive and forget and move on with life.


I then went back into the kitchen and got a drink and Becca has me name off again what was stolen so Janet could go look for it. So I say we know Guitar hero was taken, the cash, my jacket and we think a knife, which i described in detail to her, and a remote control car. Becca then showed her to the door with some words of condolence and we waited to see what would happen next.


About an hour later we get a text from Janet asking what the remote controlled car looks like. We describe the picture to the left and hope that maybe something has been found. After about 15 minutes the dogs start to bark and I look out the window and see a car in front of our house. So I put the dogs in the backyard so we can talk and then peek out the window and see Janet AND Ben walking up our drive while Janet is carry...........Traxx (no longer in its original box I might add). So now we know and Janet knows that either Ben or the friend have done this crime and they are BUSTED!





But where is everything else? Where is my birthday leather jacket? Did they bring back all the money they stole? Will Ben leave this house in one piece once i get my hands on him? Do we need to call the police still? You will have to find out later, because this post is already way long and it is bedtime. Check tomorrow for the conclusion.

Before we went to bed the night I discovered the BB gun range I also noticed that things in my bedroom closet had been rearranged. Nothing special, a blanket I threw in there was folded and some stuff was moved on the floor to one side. I then in the morning I noticed that the 2 guitars for guitar hero we keep in the closet were missing. I then went into (and this is important to notice the locations) the front entry closet where we kept the drums and peddle and noticed they were also gone. Finally I went over to the front room, which is right off the entry, and looked at the PS2 in the entertainment center and found that the microphone, guitar decals and 3 guitar hero games (1 never opened) were also gone. Odd. How come they borrowed the game and forgot to tell us? We don't mind if they play it or take it home to borrow, but it is only polite to ask first.

So now we are kind of upset because of the damage to our stuff and lack of courtesy when borrowing things. But Janet has always been really great so we send her a text and say "can you bring back guitar hero and anything else you borrowed?" We soon get a reply that says "Yes". Well good everything seems to be working out. We will talk to her about the BB gun damage when she comes over to drop things off and get her pay and we'll deduct the damage from her pay and move on with life. WRONG.

Around 4 or 5 we are dealing with the kids, Alex is eating and Claire is whining about something, so we are a little distracted. Then suddenly there is a knock on the door and there is this guy there that i have never seen before and he starts to make moves to come in.

(Most of this will be paraphrasing) I'm like hi, who are you? He says "oh, I'm Ben I'm Janet's husband. (O.K. where is she?) I came over to drop off these keys and this bottle of car paint touch up we accidentally took off your dresser (Which BTW I swear was still in its packaging when we left). Janet is at work."

Me: Oh o.k. so where is Guitar hero?
Ben: We don't know, we don't have it. We only have ours.
Ben: We thought that it was strange you asked for it back. Are you going to rent the house to us for the (hugely) discounted rate?

Of course at this point I am completely dumbfounded by what her not coming over in person and the denial of having our gaming gear and all I can think to say is, "Uuu, we just got back from vacation so you'll have to let us talk about it first."
Ben: Oh o.k well I'll see you later.

So i then rush into the backroom where Becca is feeding Alex and say "They stole Guitar Hero from us! You need to get Janet over here now so we can talk to her alone about this!"

So Becca texts her and Janet says she can't make it over here till 10am the next day because she works nights. So now I am really upset and paranoid. What else is gone? So the search starts. I said "what else could they have stolen that would be worth taking?"

This little side note is important for the rest of the story. We try to work with cash and not credit so that we don't build up any extra credit debt by being lazy with our spending. So Becca will tell me how much she needs for the month and then cash out parts of it for spending through out the month. She does this by putting the money in different envelopes labeled for their use and using them when she does purchases.

Suddenly Becca realizes that she has left some of our bill money envelopes in a black binder on the counter, which has been mysteriously cleaned and rearranged. Over $500 in CASH is missing from all the different envelopes and from around the house!!!! We start dialing Janet's phone number right then and there telling here she needs to be over here ASAP! We don't mention what is going on, just that she needs to get here now.

By now we have been talking about who could have done this and talked to the neighbors about what they have seen and only Janet and Ben have been seen coming and going from the house and because of Becca's past relationship with Janet we think that Ben has been taking things without her knowing. So by not telling her what we want to talk about we don't give him the chance to make up any lies if she talks to him before coming over. Finally she is scared enough and agrees to come over at 8 am instead of 10.

Well we have all night till Janet get to our house. So what do you think we do? Agonize and talk about what we have to do next and what are our legal choices. While talking about it I go back to the front closet and open it to look in it again to see if they actually got the drum peddle because it was separate from the drum set. Then i notice my leather jacket Becca gave me for my birthday 2 yrs ago is missing. The special hanger is there and so is the scarf I wear with it but the jacket is missing. He stole my jacket too! By now I am livid and ready to go over to his parents house (where they have been living for the first 2 weeks of their marriage) and settle things right now.

But, the hope is that Janet can help us get our stuff back. So I stay home and start looking again for what else could be missing. 2 other things end up missing (so far) a small Bayonet knife I keep in my nightstand and a *yellow RC car with track for wheels* from my closet. (notice its all my stuff going missing). So after doing some research, because I can't sleep, I find out that over $1,000 has been taken from us and that if found guilty the responsible person could be charged with a 3rd degree felony and have to pay $5000 and/or up to 5yrs in jail.

Thus started a very sleepless night and the beginning of the "confronting story" in which the, as my wife says, "Scary, how dare you do this in my house, protective, I will consume your soul" Alann comes out.

We went to California to visit my parents along with the rest of my siblings and their families Aug 20-24 2010 and because we have pets and are trying to rent/sell the house we needed to have a house sitter. We choose a young woman from the stake, we'll call her "Janet", who we had used before to babysit and house sit before. Right before Janet was to watch the house she did a surprise early wedding to her now husband "Ben". We had never met Ben before but with Janet being such an upstanding young women and her now being married we allowed her to bring Ben over to the house. We also were thinking of renting the house to the couple at a discount because they are LDS and said they would take great care of it. Things with the vacation went great and we were happy to get home when the time came.

When we walked in the door the house was spotless and had a nice pleasant smell to it. We also discovered that some stains in the carpet had been removed and that lots of little nice extra things had been done to the house. The first odd thing i noticed was that the evaporator cooler was running but that the belt had slipped off the pulley and that the blades were not turning even it the motor was, so I turned it off. Then Becca notice a "ball bearing" on the floor, which was later determined to be a BB. On the way to the back I saw a paint can lid with a bunch of what appeared to be drilled holes sitting in the recycling bin in the kitchen. Why did they do that?

After that I went into the laundry room and found the light bulb missing from the ceiling fixture in the garage and had to walk through the garage in the dark to let the dogs out. On the way I found a pair of locking pliers holding a long shafted flat head screw driver just laying on my tool bench while a ratchet set was knocked over the back of the bench and wedge behind the wall. Odd, what were they doing?

I opened the door to the backyard and looked to my left and noticed that some small 2'x 4'closet doors we were working on had been moved outside and that some pots that had been stacked were also moved. After some quick investigation I found that someone had set up a BB gun range in our backyard and had shot our watering can, closet doors, and that paint lid. Not only that but they had missed sometimes and put 3 holes in the siding on the house. They had also taken the only light bulb in the garage out to use in some of my spot lights so they could light up the target area and then never put it or the spot lights back in their places.

We have now realized that the "ball bearing" in the house was a BB and that the pliers and screw driver tool were used to pry a BB out in our office were they shot the wall! These are the guys that are supposed to take better care of our place than another person off the street and for a discounted rent?!?! What else have they done to the house that we haven't found yet?

So far this only covers the damage they have done to the house (that we know of) I haven't even started to talk about the other odd things around the house that finally lead us to know that some major theft had happened. But for now, like after I discovered the firing range in our back yard, it is late and I will tell more of the story later after I get some stuff done and get some sleep. Oh i should mention that this story will probably be in 4 parts/days, Damage, Theft, Confronting, and Results

O.k. so i unintentionally lied I will not tell more about our theft story today. I spent 5 hrs out in the hot sun cleaning up the dog damage, trash and mowing so that the backyard would look somewhat respectable for viewers. So I am sun burnt and sun drained and will attempt to tell our theft story tomorrow.

So after a long time of not writing due to school I have finally graduated and can now spend some time writing on the blog each week. I am completely exhausted because of an incident we had with our house sitter. To keep a long story short we had a house sitter's husband or (very unlikely) friend steal and damage $1000 of cash and property. So I was up all night worrying about the situation and this was after barely getting over a late night drive from Ca to Kearns. I've been posting little bits and pieces of the progression on facebook and will do a bigger post on it later but for now I just wanted to write a little something after such a long absence.

So apparently the duckhunter game in my game corner had gone bad so everytime someone tried to view my site it would redirect them to another site so i had to go into my layout section and try to hit the remove button before it changed to the other site. Well alot has changed in my life since i last posted and unfortunately it looks like things are going to stay quiet for a while on the blogger front. I just looked at my scheduale for the next month and i have a major test, 2 finals, a 14 page pager, a major project, a new 32hr maintenance job, a scholarship job, a house to remodel and a baby to prep for. SO, I MAY BE A LITTLE BUSY. But the good news is that life goes on and while things are busy they seem to be going well and at this point that is all I ask for. So till next time goodbye and good night.

Apparently there is something wrong with my blogsite so for all those who can read this before it changes to the other site, I am working on the problem.

I have decided 9not that this is new to anyone) that looking for a job sucks. If you follow me on Facebook you know I had an interview last week with a developer that while pleasant, went nowhere. He was strike number 3 on interviews and strike number whatever on resume submissions. I just had number 4 interview with a small (250 units) property management company. It was a pleasant interview and I met with both the owners who were maybe 2-4 yrs older than me. The 2 things that were big hang ups for them was 1. that they are so small they may not have enough work for me to do and 2. that 6-8 months is a short time and would it be worth teaching me how to do things. Mind you when I say worth it to them this would be a free internship and would cost them nothing but training time.

Now I don't know how many of you readers (I have) have done internships for school, but usually they are a semester long or 3.5 months long. Then after that you have to reapply or move on to another. So 6-8 months is actually a good long time for a free internship to happen. I am pretty sure it would be a good thing for me to get a position with them because they are about where I want to be in 3-4 yrs. My own family sized property management company with 6-7 employees and around 25-50% of the properties being managed owned by me/or another of my family companies. So getting in with them would help me see and learn a lot of what to and not to do. So wish me luck and wish me extra strong luck that maybe they spontaneously decide to pay me for my work, because that would be great!

So the bathroom is like 97% done. There are only a few small things left to do, but first the bathroom needs to be used for a week to make sure the fixtures that I put up work and have no problems that need to be addressed. Then I can put the finishing touches on the bathroom and call it done for good. I am not really sure what it is I am going to do next, but I am sure that there is going to be another project around the house for me to work on, after all we aren't lacking in that department.

However before Istart a new project I think the plan is to call in a Real Estate agent to look at the house and give us an estimation on value and sell time so we can decide what to do with the house for when I graduate. With the economy the way it is now it may take the whole 7 months for the house to sell. However we have put in a lot of work into the house and it may be one of the "nicer ones" in the area so it may go faster than the others in the block. Who knows. I just hope we can break even on the money we put in. If we had sold during the good times with all our improvements we would have easily seen additional 20-25k in equity. But now we may have to decide between a faster exit or a higher return.

The third option is to rent it out using a property managment place and hold on to it until the market improves. Which for Ut is expected to be by the end of 2011 or mid 2012. If it comes down to it I am ok with option 3 as long as we can rent it for enough to pay the mortage and the management fee, which may mean we need to refinance. Meanwhile I still need to find a job so we dont eat through all of our loan money before we move. So wish us luck.

So for over a year now me and Becca have been playing this online server game called travian. It is a pretty fun game that allows players to create midevil age towns and troops and pit them against each other in real time. You tell the troops and village units what to do and then wait for them to acomplish the task. It is kind of a fun game, except that once you reach a certain size of empire no one will mess with you and there is no new activities/quests to go out and do, so you end up in a rut.

I bring this up because our alliance leader wants to know if we will join the alliance on the next server that opens up since the one we are on now is about to end. I would really like to continue playing but I think i want to try something with a little more action like Age of Empires 3 or WOW. The only problem with that is those games tend to eat up a lot of time per day you play(like 1.5-2 hrs). With travian it really comes down to only putting in as much time as you want per day and still being able to thrive in the game (like 15 minutes). I am at a loss of what to do. Maybe someone out there knows of a mix of the 2 kinds of games one that has long term goals that can be left to tend to themselves with a mix of player started real time battles. I dont know, if anyone has any ideas post them and I'll check them out.

Well happy new year everyone. Another year has come and gone and so has the school semester from the underworld. Yes, I am finally free and able to do more with my life than go to class and do homework. That doesn't mean that I will be posting every night or anything, but hopefully it means that i will be posting more often than once every 3 months. Also something I find kind of fitting is that this not only is my first post in the new year and easier semester, but it is also my 100th post meaning I am now entering a new era of blog postings. So for those of you who are left who still check this site soon there will be new things to read and new comments to make and be sure to let others know that things are now up and running. Speaking of i have to go now, tanner just threw up on the rug!