UMTravels

Driving around noticed that the van is about 2,000 miles over it’s oil change time. Dropped Gnarlene off who stayed over and tried the local oil change place… one person and a lot full of cars. I don’t have 3 hours to wait. Off to the Grease Monkey in Ballard near Helene’s place. Out of there by noon and on the road to Oly with a stop by Mark and Kassie’s on Queen Anne — they are making some serious progress on their townhouses. Confirmed that the view from the back deck of the lower units wouldn’t be as nice as I thought. Damn, couldn’t afford them anyway.

The lawn needs mowed in the Oly place, but looks great. I have the washing machine in the back of the van (why do I always end up moving these things by myself!) and wrestle it up the back stairs and into the laundry room. Need to get one more hose (had one in the plumbing box), a standpipe for the water exit, a plate cover for the power, redo a dead outlet box with a blank plate, and patch some holes in the front bedroom and add another coat of paint. Julian did a fantastic job of stripping the small section of the living room and making it match what was there.

3:30pm finds me in the real estate office at Coldwell Banker — 5% (Seattle and the islands are 6%), plus I get 1,000 permanent points from WorldMark assuming this thing sells. Need to do that deal with the church when that listing expires. He’s going to take pictures tomorrow, and post a virtual tour. Price is $209,000 — he wanted $205,000, but I think the neighborhood will add the extra little bit. Bought it for $180,000 so I won’t make a ton of money on it after updating the electrical, but it will free up some capital. And the girls did make the mortgage payments for a year and a half.

5:30pm finds me drinking scotch with Dwight. After a couple of drinks I inquired about his week long “date” with a woman he met on a train trip last year. His response?

“After two days I felt I should get a t-shirt that said ‘I am not a piece of playground equipment’.”

By 7:30pm we’d ordered in for Chinese food and settled in with computers and a movie (A Mighty Wind).

By 9:30pm Dwight was headed to bed. I stayed up and caught up on all the email, address changes and stuff — should have done the blog!