Oct 31 2013

Buying a House: Part 2 – Legalized Snooping

Categories:

Ramblings, The House

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Back when I still threw my money away on cable television, I used to watch HGTV quite a bit.  In particular, I would spend hours upon hours watching shows like Property Virgins, My First Place, House Hunters, or Property Brothers:  30-minute shows (usually produced in Canada) of people looking at three houses, and then trying to pick which one of the three was the one they were going to buy.  So I started off the house-hunting process with what I thought was a pretty well-founded idea of what buying a house was going to be like.

I always believed that it was the job of the buyer’s agent to help the buyer find potential houses.  Perhaps this is true for some agents, especially back when the Internet was not so pervasive, but it wasn’t for my agent.  We didn’t meet to talk about what I was looking for in a house.  Instead, she just sent me a login to their online house-hunting system.  A preliminary search had been set up for me, and it was my job to go through the hundreds and hundreds of houses to find the ones I was interested in viewing.   I thought I was going into the process with a pretty good idea of what I wanted, and I had a good sense of where I would be able to afford the kinds of houses that I wanted to own.  But I probably spent 20-30 hours combing through listings, searching in different areas, and putting together my short list.

I was mainly looking for houses in the Renton, Issaquah, Snoqualmie, and North Bend areas.  I would have loved to stay in Redmond or Bellevue, but I just couldn't afford a house in those areas.  And I couldn't justify buying a condo or townhouse. I wanted to get away from neighbors. I wanted to be able to sing at the top of my lungs at 1AM if I felt the urge. I wanted some land to look after. Plus, HOA fees around here are ludicrous.  For an extra $200-$400 a month, you can afford $30,000-$50,000 more house. It had to be a standalone house for me, so it had to be south and east of my current location.  I also looked around a few areas in south and west Seattle as well, just for comparison.  On the Friday of my week off, I drove to Snoqualmie and and North Bend to get a sense of the area and to look at houses for a while, just to get a sense if I would be interested in living in such a remote, small place.  The answer was a resounding no.   (Also the only houses I was interested in ended up being smack dab in the middle of a massive flood plain.)  I also realized that I wasn’t interested in living in one of those “master-planned” communities where you’re technically buying a house, but you’re really buying a standalone townhouse.

The following Sunday, my agent, my friend Hannah, and I all hopped in my agent's car, and drove around to 6 houses that I had shortlisted.  I was relatively unfamiliar with the Renton area, so I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting myself into.  It was…well…it was eye-opening.

The first house we went to was a decent little house.  It was in the $260k range, older in build, and completely original–but not in the trendy midcentury modern sort of way.  It was on a quiet cul de sac, and had a decent-sized yard, but the yard was surrounded by giant trees, and the whole place was dark and a little depressing.  I liked the idea of buying a house with good bones and fixing it up, but I knew I didn’t have the money to do the work I would want to do to make this the kind of place I wanted to live.  I put this house in the maybe pile.

House #2 was whacky. The whole house was surrounded by a chain link fence (the kind with the vinyl strips running through at a 45 degree angle).  There was no front yard, and the house was in a pretty run-down neighborhood.  They had converted the garage into a “bedroom,” but hadn’t done it with permits, so who knows how it was done.  The back yard was AMAZING, with a ton of space and a huge garden. They had giant sunrooms built off the back of two of the bedrooms, but one of the windows in the south sunroom had been completely smashed in.  One of the windows in the kitchen had a bullet hole through it.  There was a box of old checks in the unpermitted fireplace. Everyone living in the place was sleeping on air mattresses.  I was SERIOUSLY not feeling it.  Off the list.

House #3 had a rather inauspicious beginning.  When we pulled up to the house, I wasn’t particularly sold.  There was no garage, which I didn’t love.  You could tell the house was recently re-done, and it looked nice, but it was small.  My agent scraped the bottom of her rental Jaguar on the curb trying to pull into the driveway.  “We don’t have to go in if you don’t want to,” she said.  “Eh. We’re here. Let’s just do a quick once-through.”

All of my reservations about the house melted away pretty quickly once we opened the front door.  The house had been completely remodeled on the inside.  New oak hardwood floors, new cabinet, new granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances.  Crown molding, new windows, a new roof, and a new fence for the massive back yard (with fruit trees!).  The kitchen was huge. There were two bedrooms with en suites.  And I wouldn’t have to do any major remodeling.  The only work that needed to be done was the gardening and landscaping, which is something I can do…and over time.  It was beautifully done. 

There were a few things that stuck out to me about the house, but I liked it a lot. So did my agent and Hannah.  Everyone kept saying what a surprise the interior of the house was, and how much potential there was on the exterior as well.  Unfortunately, it was 12:35 when we left the property, and the agent was hosting an open house 25 minutes later, so, despite the fact that I really liked this house, I was concerned that I would lose it to someone doing the open house.    But, we had other houses to see, and I didn’t want to put in an offer until I had a chance to look at a few more houses.  But, this one felt like “home” almost immediately upon walking through the door.

House #4 was nice, and in a very nice neighborhood, but the owner of the house wouldn’t actually leave the house while we were touring it. It was really uncomfortable—particularly since he was particularly unfriendly.  The house had a really weird layout, and felt super-cramped, even though it was the largest of the houses I looked at.  (It was also the most expensive.)  The yard was also completely shaded by large trees which would have made gardening difficult. It was also the most expensive house I looked at…about $20,000 over my max budget.

House #5 was perhaps the strangest house of all.  It felt like a cross between a lodge, a log cabin, and the set of a horror film.  For starters, the house was situated very close to a gun club, and when we went to visit the place, it sounded like I had been dropped in the middle of a war zone.  It was so bad that there was even a note immediately inside the door that said “GUN CLUB SUMMER HOURS: 11AM-6PM WED-SAT” and the owner had written a note trying to tell potential buyers how awesome the place was, despite the incessant gunfire and hunting club vibe of the property.  The bedroom didn’t have a closet, but instead, a MASSIVE built-in wardrobe that looked like a bad knockoff of a black forest cuckoo clock, blown up to 12’ x 9’.  The bathroom ceiling sloped and I couldn’t stand up to pee without having to crook my neck to the side.  The basement/back door didn’t have a doorknob, and instead just had a latch with a padlock. And the hatch to the “crawlspace” was officially the creepiest thing I have ever seen in real life.  When my agent saw it, she said in her most chipper voice, “And here’s where you can store your dead hookers…”  (which, considering my love for dead hooker jokes, really won me over.) This one was a big fat NO.

House #6 was another remodeled house. It was a sort of a split level house.  You had to go up a large flight of stairs to get to the front door.  Then, going inside, you either had to go straight up more stairs to the living room and kitchen, or straight downstairs to the “basement” which is where the bedrooms were.  The backyard, which was flat, huge, and rather empty, was fully fenced, but someone had driven into the back yard and done donuts in the grass. The house had been remodeled, and seemed rather nice. I probably would have considered this one had it not been for the fact that it was out in the middle of NOWHERE.  As in, “I’m sorry sir, but we can’t provide internet access to that address.  You’ll have to get dial-up.” And for me, that’s a deal-breaker.  That and I don’t want to have to drive 30 minutes to get anywhere, or deal with neighbors who do donuts with their pickup trucks in the back yards of neighbors houses, or who honestly think that Obama is a Kenyan Muslim.  My ability to live in a neighborhood is inversely proportional to the percentage of people in that neighborhood who believe Fox News is a valid source of political news and information.

There were a couple of other houses on my short list that we weren’t able to visit, because we couldn’t get ahold of the occupants for a showing, but by that time, I felt like I had a pretty good idea of what was available in the market in my price range.  If I wanted a house (and I did), then my options were limited.  All three of us agreed that house #3 was the right house for me.  So, I decided to put in an offer.

Coming up: The bargain, the inspection, and the worst refinishing job ever.

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Sep 29 2013

Buying a House, Part 1: The Decision

Categories:

Ramblings

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I love the Seattle area.  The 8 months of dreariness notwithstanding, it’s a great place, with lots of great people.  It’s beautiful.  The food is incredible. It’s a fantastic, thriving, growing, cutting-edge city.  It’s a great place to live.

It is also expensive as hell.  When I moved here back in 2007, I had to make peace with the realization that I would never actually be able to afford to buy a home here.  A home that in Michigan or Ohio might cost $100,000 would easily cost $600-700k or more, depending on location.  We’re not as expensive as California or New York City, but my hunch is that we’re certainly on the upper range of average house prices in the US.  As a single man with a single source of income, I realized that it was probably unlikely that I would ever be able to make enough to own anything close to the type of house I wanted to own.  Most of the homeowners I knew were couples with at least two sources of income.

So, I rented.  I moved out to the Archstone Redmond Lakeview complex in June of 2007, and I’ve been here ever since.  Back in March of this year, however, Archstone  Property Management was sold, and its assets split off and merged into two other property management companies: Equity and Avalon Bay. 

The Lakeview complex had some problems while under the management auspices of Archstone.  They had a beast of a time keeping the office fully staffed.  The corporate offices didn’t provide anywhere near enough money for maintenance and upkeep of the property, and there were long swaths of time during their tenure where personnel issues resulted in a management vacuum at the complex.  But, the one thing they did really, really well was to create a sense of community.  The folks who worked in the office and on the maintenance team were really friendly and outgoing.  They felt more like your friends and neighbors than they did your landlords.  They held regular community events like Pizza Parties and BBQs.  They even had a complimentary continental breakfast every Saturday morning in the office, and the complex’s golf cart held a ready supply of dog biscuits for the canines living here.  (To this day, Luke the Dog™ still nearly dislocates my shoulder every time the golf cart crosses his field of vision.) 

The result of all these items was a very friendly, collegial, and neighborly atmosphere in the complex.  I knew many of my neighbors (if not by name, then by their dogs’ names), some of them to the level of friendship.  In my many, many years of renting apartments, Archstone Redmond Lakeview was the very first complex where I felt as though I had a full-blown community, neighbors I could count on, and a feeling of ownership.  I cared about this complex.  I would pick up trash on my daily walks.  I would regularly talk to the office staff. I would greet my neighbors, and pick up their mail while they were on vacation.

When Avalon Bay took over the property, they managed to very quickly take away the sense of community.  They replaced the entire office staff with one who was professional and friendly, but completely un-invested in building a sense of community.  They cancelled the resident events and weekend breakfasts.  They got rid of the dog treats. They also managed to take away some of the few amenities that the complex offered.  They were efficient and professional, but in a few short months, Lakeview turned from my home into just another corporate-run apartment complex from which I rented a unit.

Then they started jacking up the rents extravagantly, and people started moving out in droves…especially the long-term residents who had experienced what it was like to have such a strong community spirit.  And the people who moved in didn’t have any of the same sort of community-building experiences to help move them from disparate renters into members of the neighborhood.  So very quickly, the place became full of solitary couples and individuals.

About three months ago, my neighbors and good friends, Julie and Alex, received their renewal notice, and were hit with a nearly 20% increase in rent. It was, for them, the tipping point, and they decided it was time to begin the house-hunting process.  Before long, they found a great place, purchased it, and moved away.  About a week after they had moved into their new home, their Real Estate Agent and Mortgage Agent held a little open house in their new home, which I attended. 

During the open house I got talking with Jodi, their Real Estate Agent, about my own financial situation, and how I was uncertain when, or even if, I would ever be able to purchase a house out here.  My 2005 Bankruptcy was now 8 ½ years old, I had very little savings to speak of, and a fair bit of debt.  I simply didn’t seem like a good candidate for house ownership in my own mind.  Jodi did give me some insights into the market, and corrected a few misconceptions I had about my own personal situation, and handed me her card.

Right about that same time, my dad had a little bit of a Come to Jesus meeting with me about my finances.  If you’re a regular reader of my blog (or as regular as anyone can be considering how rarely I update said blog), then you know that I’m not exactly the thriftiest individual in the world.  I have an entirely undeserved taste for the finer things in life, and I can pretty easily convince myself I am entitled to purchase them, even if I don’t really have the money to afford it.  The concept of an emergency account has been pretty foreign to me for most of my life.  I only started a retirement account at the age of 29, but then I emptied it (paying the penalty) two and half years later to buy a piano.  I have only been saving again for the last three years. 

Then the pen habit hit.  I began spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on pens, ink, and paper.  In a matter of six months, I amassed a collection of over 30 high-quality fountain pens (ranging in price from $20 to $700), 90 bottles of ink (some costing as much as $30 a bottle), and all kinds of specialty papers from France.  It is still a wonderful hobby, and I love my pens, but it was a more than little financially irresponsible…not to mention completely unnecessary.

My inability to treat money responsibly came largely because I had decided that, as a single man with essentially no chance of ever having children, I might as well enjoy all my money.  In my mind, the lack of responsibility toward anyone other than myself meant that the great majority of the savings most people do (college funds, extra health insurance, life insurance, etc.) simply didn’t apply to me.  I had a great deal of disposable income (in my own mind, anyway).   And since I had come to the conclusion that I would never be able to qualify for owning my own home, why not spend the money on things I really enjoyed?  Look, I never said I was known for my sound logic.

After the conversation with my father, where he essentially told me to start looking at my financial life from a slightly more mature perspective, coupled with my conversations with Jodi the Real Estate Agent, and taking into account that my rent was scheduled to go up in a few months,and I no longer liked the community I had called my home for the last six years, I decided it was time for a change.  At first, I thought I would perhaps rent a small house or a townhome in a new area—getting away from Redmond.  I toyed around with the idea of moving into Seattle proper to be a part of the hustle and bustle of the city, as well as improve my chances for a relationship.  But eventually, after some soul-searching, some eye-opening experiences, and a lot of consideration and research, I finally decided the time was right for me to purchase a home.

At the end of August, I had scheduled a week off from work for a stay-cation.  I had a couple of audiobook projects I wanted to wrap up, as well as some last-bit-of-summer enjoyment in which I wanted to partake.  I decided that this week might be a good time to get started with the house hunting process. 

The first step was to get pre-approved for financing.  The week prior to my time off, I gathered up my financial documents and sent them over to my Loan Agent.  We scheduled a time to meet on Tuesday of the following week.  This step made me horrendously nervous.  Based on my history with debt, I have this deeply-embedded emotional terror surrounding the process of applying and getting rejected for credit.  There are few things in this world that embarrass me more.  Put me up on stage in front of 20,000 people naked, and I would be less embarrassed than if I’m in a store applying for credit and my application gets rejected.  I’m sure there’s some deep, psychological meaning behind that; all I know is that I hate it more than almost anything.  So, I approached this pre-approval process with a great deal of trepidation.

After about 30 minutes of going over my finances in the office of the Mortgage Bank company, I was approved for what I still consider to be a staggering amount.  But we ran the numbers, I determined what I thought I could afford to pay each month, and I had my baseline.  It was time to start looking for houses.

Next up: The house search.

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Aug 18 2013

New Song: Old Friend

Categories:

Media, Music, Reminiscing

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I first heard this song on the album Sibling Rivalry by Ann Hampton Calloway (the composer and singer of the theme song from "The Nanny" and a celebrated cabaret singer) and her sister, Liz Calloway (Miss Saigon original cast, Baby, singing voice of Anastasia in the movie of the same name.)  The song, written by Nancy Ford and Gretchen Cryer is from a 1978 musical "I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road."  (This song is the same age as I am!) 

I'm not really sure what it is about this song I like so much, but I do.  I suppose that I can identify with it.  I don't have a lot of friends in my life, but those friends I do have tend to be pretty close.  (I am, after all, an INFJ…)  I've been thinking about recording this song for a couple of years, but I had an experience a couple of weeks ago that was a little rough for me, and it got me thinking about my future–and the increasingly likely chance that I will, "go it on my own."  When you don't have a significant other, the importance of those very good friends is greatly magnified.  I've been fortunate enough to meet some incredible, wonderful people in this life–some of them who are currently a part of my life, and some of them whose courses have shifted them out of my life.  Whether or not we're still in touch, I'm very grateful for the time I had with the people who touched my life for the better.

This is another one of those "attempt to determine the chord progression by listening to the recording" type of things that I do.  Once I got the chords down, I transposed the chords into a better key and spent a long time trying to lock down a roughly-shaped piano part.  I can honestly say that I have never played the piano part the same way twice. 

Enjoy!

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Jul 09 2013

2013 Saga: A Year In Review (So Far…)

Categories:

Being Existential, Reminiscing

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Do you ever get that feeling, as though you have allowed your life to run away from you?  Where once, you were organized and in control, and now you live in chaos?  Because that is my life.  And, over the last six months in particular, the chaos of my life has come perilously close to engulfing me on numerous occasions.  This is, of course, my way of explaining why I have done such a poor job at updating my blog. Yes, I know blogs are passe.  And I know that the cool kids are using Tumblr (or whatever.)  I have officially hit that age where I have stopped caring about whatever the coolest new platform is. I've been blogging for nigh unto 10 years, dammit. And I may take an extended break, but I'll always come back.

Rather than do a bunch of blog posts about my life over the last several months, I figured I would try to do a quick overview to get caught up. Enjoy.

If you follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+, you may have noticed that I developed a rather unique hobby about six months ago: fountain pens. In the intervening months, I have expended most of my writing energies on keeping a journal and writing letters to friends and family. I would say that it is a cheap form of therapy, but if you know anything about me, you know that when it comes to my hobbies, I don’t do anything half way. My initial collection of a few hand-turned wooden fountain pens has ballooned into a large collection of pens in a whole variety of price ranges.  I have, as of this last weekend, 48 different inks in stock. I use specialty papers specifically intended for fountain pens that are made in France. So really, this little hobby, while thoroughly engaging for me, has become a rather expensive form of therapy.  That being said, I still love it.  I even started a new blog and YouTube channel at http://penhabit.com

The previous two months have also been plagued by an ongoing health concern.  In early May, I discovered that I had a 5mm kidney stone lodged firmly in my ureter.  The pain from this stone, which was more excruciating than I could possibly put into words, would come and go at random intervals—often leaving me completely unable to function.  The health care experience that resulted from it was a tragedy of errors: misdiagnoses by doctors who spent less than 3 minutes examining me, late night trips to urgent care, urologists who charged me $80 for an office visit to inform me that there was “nothing they could do,” and of course, a health insurance deductible and out-of-pocket maximum that will completely eviscerate my past (and future) savings of the last year.  On the positive side of things, I had a Lithotripsy performed yesterday (Monday the 8th), and three hours afterwards, I finally passed the stones that had been tormenting me for months.  I feel much better now. At least until I get the bill for it.

In June, Andrew and I decided it was time to shut down Open Book Audio…in a manner of speaking.  We stopped accepting outside books for production and distribution. However, while we stopped taking outside projects, we had a pretty substantial backlog of projects that still need to be completed.  So, despite having “shut down” the business, I find that I am still spending a great portion of my evenings working on Open Book Audio.  I have three more books that I have to complete, and a couple more books I have to process for distribution. Then I need to take a month-long break from any Open Book Audio work, because I am so burned out I could weep. Unfortunately, this work isn't even something I can pass off to someone else. So, while most of the other folks working for OBA finally got to wind down, I'm still going. And going. And going.

I am doing my annual garden at Marymoor Park again this year.  This go around, I decided that I was going to spend a little money and purchase several cubic yards of high-quality compost for my garden.  It was a wise decision.  The extra nutrients in the soil, combined with an early, sunny summer, has caused my garden to simply explode.  Despite having over-planted the plot, I am hauling rather insane amounts of produce out of my garden.  (I, for instance, took 23 zucchini to work for my co-workers today…all of which had been harvested in less than one week’s time.)  As much work as the garden is, I’m glad I do it.  It’s the one thing that I have in my life that lets me get away from my thoughts, my computer screen, and my responsibilities.  I can turn on an audiobook and turn off my brain while I sit in the dirt and pull weeds.  Again, not cheap. But it is good therapy.

Luke the Dog™ has been struggling the last several months.  First, he got a case of mange that caused his fur to fall out on his muzzle.  Once that was resolved, he started exhibiting signs of elbow problems on his front legs.  I could tell he was in a great deal of pain.  The vet had to put him on painkillers and Rimadyl, and that appeared to help quite a bit.  Then, he got another case of his usual summer skin allergies, which caused him to get very itchy and start pulling out large chunks of fur, chew on his skin, develop staph infections, and be all-around miserable.  I had to put him back on a steroid/anti-biotic, and that seems to be winding down a bit.  But because of all of his issues, he hasn’t been able to go swimming very much this summer, which I find to be tragic.  He loves being in the water so much, and I wish he was in better health so he could enjoy the summer before it is over.  (Frankly, I wish that for myself as well.)

Aside from that, my family seems to have been struck by a string of unpleasant / scary / unfortunate events. My brother’s car died. My sister had to put her dog to sleep even though the dog was only 4 years old. My father had to have neck surgery, having two of his vertebrae removed and replaced with cadaver bone and a metal plate (which, I will add, he did five days after running a half marathon.  I’m pretty proud of my papa.)  My mother has acquired a virus (we think) in her ear canal which has caused her to lose most of her hearing in one ear. I had kidney stones. My grandmother is having continuing health problems. My uncle and his wife had their house burn down due to faulty electrical wiring.   All in all, I’m feeling a little emotionally beat up by the last six months.

I turned 35 years old two days ago. It was a low key birthday.  I took myself to a movie (White House Down), and got some yummy food, including some Red Velvet Bread Pudding.  Then I bought myself a new pen and several bottles of ink with my birthday money.  I think my co-workers are planning on taking me out to lunch for a belated birthday lunch later this week.  And I talked to my family on the phone. But that’s about it for the celebrations.

My recent birthday has, as many milestones do, caused me to take stock of my life and evaluate where I am versus where I want to be.  In many ways, I am closer to the life I want to lead than I have ever been.  I have a stable home. I have a good job, working with people I like. I have a great dog, a garden, and neighbors I enjoy. I live in a beautiful place, and I am able to enjoy some of the nicer things in life.  In many respects, I am pretty lucky. But I also find that there are a few aspects of my life that are still sorely out of whack…areas which I need to work on, and will probably need some help to do so. I need some help with spending money. I am still eating in a way that is not sustainable for my health or well-being. And I am still very much alone in the romance/relationship department. 

A month ago, I had a long conversation on the phone with my father.  My dad is one of those people who is just naturally a happy person.  He’s not saccharine or oblivious to the hardship in the world.  He is not simple-minded or obtuse.  He is simply able to look at the world and emphasize the positive while still recognizing, and often overcoming, the negative. Even when things are bad, he is honestly able to answer the question of “How are you doing” with a cheerful “Better than I deserve!” 

I have never been like that. I view the world as a series of problems that need to be solved.  I always have. I look at a situation, and see all the areas where there is work to be done, issues to resolve, and improvement to make.  I examine everything around me with an eagle eye, and I am drawn toward those aspects of my life which need fixing.  In many ways, this way of looking at the world has enabled me to accomplish some pretty spectacular things.  But it has also, I believe, prevented me from ever having been truly happy.  I am, and always have been, a mildly unhappy person. 

I would like to turn this around. I would like to wake up each morning, anxious to greet the day.  I would like to be able to greet my co-workers cheerfully and not feel like I’m putting on an act.  I would like to smile more naturally, laugh more freely, and simply derive more enjoyment from the act of living.  I think that many of the things about myself I don’t like—my money habits, my weight/eating, my loneliness, my lack of a partner—are all things that are being informed heavily by my outlook. Nobody wants to spend time with an Eeyore.  Hell, even I don’t like spending time with people who are always moping about feeling as though the world has done them wrong.

So, I am trying to start a journey to determine how to fundamentally change the makeup of my character, and hopefully, in so doing, find happiness in the life I have while still being driven to improve.

And if you’ve figured out how to do that, let me know…

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Jul 08 2013

Root Beer Review: Natural Brew Draft Root Beer

Categories:

Root Beer Reviews

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natural-brewName: Natural Brew Draft Root Beer
Bottled by Smucker Natural Foods, Inc.
Chico, CA
Price: $1.83 per 12 oz. bottle
Purchase Date: 6 July 2013
Consumed on: 8 July 2013

Sweetness: 7
Flavor: 4
Aftertaste: 3
Carbonation: 6
Color: 5
Complexity: 8

Score: 5/10

Ingredients: Sparkling filtered water, evaporated cane juice, natural flavors, bourbon vanilla extract, anise, sarsaparilla, licorice root, birch oil, wintergreen oil, caramel color, phosphoric acid.

Notes:  This is a very interesting root beer.  I find it to be excessively sweet. But, unlike some of the other uber-sweet root beers I have tasted, I find this one to be a pretty complex sweetness.  Smucker uses evaporated cane juice for sweetening this root beer, which is, for all intents and purposes, nearly identical to regular white table sugar.  (http://www.processedfreeamerica.org/resources/health-news/405-the-truth-about-evaporated-cane-juice). This brand seems to be about the all-natural ingredients, and evaporated cane juice sounds more natural that "refined cane sugar," even though that's what it is.  Regardless, this root beer does have a whole lot of sugar (39g of sugar in a 12oz bottle.)  Interestingly, the sweetness does have a bit of a honey taste to it, although honey is not included in the list of ingredients.

Fortunately, this sweetness is modulated somewhat by the presence of several ingredients which provide a very complex, albeit it not always pleasant, flavor.  Anise, Sarsaparilla, Licorice Root, Birch Oil, and Wintergreen Oil are all included in the ingredients list.  I do like that you can actually see a large number of the ingredients instead of just "Natural Flavors" which is what is on most root beer. This root beer also uses Bourbon Vanilla extract for its vanilla flavor, which does impart a little of a burbon-like flavor to the mix.  I doesn't taste boozy, per se, but there is a bit of that fermented flavor.  

In terms of carbonation, Natural Brew is pretty lightly carbonated, and that carbonation disappears pretty quickly after the bottle has been opened.  The bubbles aren't very "aggressive," resulting in a very smooth mouth feel.  

Since root beer is, in essence, a tea, it is not surprising that there is a bit of a medicinal aftertaste to it.  Rather like the metallic flavor you might get in your mouth after getting IV fluids.  (I just had a "surgical" procedure today which required an IV, so that's the example that is fresh on my mind.)

In short, I didn't find this root beer unpleasant. Nor, however, did I find it very exciting.  It had a complex flavor, but it came across as almost too complex. There were so many different competing flavors that they all ended up muting each other, leaving behind a rather bland final product. I generally more pronounced wintergreen and vanilla flavors in my root beers than I got here.  And there was no "bite" at all.  This was just an okay root beer for me.  Very middle of the road.

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Jul 07 2013

Root Beer Review: Avery’s Gold Coin Beverages Root Beer

Categories:

Ramblings

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Avery's Root Beer

Name: Avery's Root Beer
Bottled by Avery's Bottling Works
New Britain, Connecticut
Price: $1.83 per 12 oz. bottle
Purchase Date: 6 July 2013
Consumed on: 7 July 2013

Sweetness: 8
Flavor: 2
Aftertaste: 1
Carbonation: 4
Color: 5
Complexity: 2

Score: 3/10

Ingredients: Not listed on the bottle.

Notes:  This is one of the most lackluster and boring root beers I have ever tasted in my life.  It's very sweet, but the sweetness has a very strong light brown sugar flavor to it.  You don't get many of the complex molasses-like flavors. It's completely lacking any of the minty, peppery, or vanilla tones you might find in most root beers.  It is barely carbonated, which lends to the syrupy consistency of the product.  And, it can have a rather unpleasant chemical aftertaste that has hints of cleanings products and dust.  It reminds me a little bit of one of those root beer barrel candies, but one that was stale from having sat in the bottom of your grandmother's purse for 13 years.  There is an interesting caramel note to the soda, but in general, it lacks all of the complexity of flavor that I really enjoy in a root beer.

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Jun 26 2013

SCOTUS, Prop 8, and Change

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Edited to fix the typos resulting from being on painkillers while writing. Stupid kidney stones…

The Supreme Court of the United States handed down two decisions of great interest to me today: one on a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act, and one on the legality of California's Prop 8. The result of both of these was, for the most part, a favorable one. Despite the largely positive outcome however, the rulings, and the resulting “dialogue,”  have left me feeling both happy, and a little sad.

Five years ago this month, I walked into (and shortly thereafter out of) an LDS Sunday service for the last time.  Prop 8, which would end up passing in California just a few months later, was heavily in the news, and I was torn between two worlds.  I was a gay man trying to find his place in a church that was actively engaged in preventing gay men and women from receiving equal legal standing in the eyes of the State of California. 

That Fathers day, I sat in Sacrament meeting, listening to young men, young women, children, and wives extoll the virtues of fatherhood and having a priesthood presence in the home, and it finally struck me: you will NEVER belong here. No matter how hard you try, you will always be an outsider, a potential liability, a project, and a failure in the eyes of this culture.  I sat in the chapel overflow, miserable and depressed, and I remember having a distinct and clear though: “It's time to move on. You’ve tried your best, and God is pleased with your efforts. He also knows that you’re not happy here. There is no need to put yourself through this torture any longer.” It was the closest thing to a personal revelation I have ever experienced. And so, in the middle of the service, I stood up, exited the chapel, walked to my car, and never returned.

Over the five intervening years, I have watched a massive and awe-inspiring shift in the public acceptance of gay men and women by a burgeoning portion of our society.  As someone who used to be terrified of anyone discovering my orientation, I am regularly astonished at how many people now consider homosexuality simply to be a non-issue. Where telling someone you were gay used to be (and, to be fair, sometimes still is) a major ordeal with uncertain consequences, oftentimes an "I am gay" pronouncement these days is treated with the same gravitas as "I got a haircut" or "I'm wearing a blue shirt."  Most people just don't seem to care one way or the other. To see this shift is heartening, and brings me peace.  Were Prop 8 brought to a vote today, I do not believe that it would pass, even were the same millions of dollars and tens of thousands of man hours dedicated to its cause once again.  The winds of change are blowing, and for that, I am deeply grateful.

I continue to feel a sense of loss over my departure from the spiritual stomping grounds of my youth. Far from being bitter or angry, however, I am simply saddened by the religious teachings of many "Christian" faiths that gay people aren't complete, can't be spiritually whole, and can't be happy. I am saddened that spiritual gay men and women aren't being welcomed into full fellowship, and that the continuing dogma of homosexuality as spiritual bankruptcy continues. 

Even the carefully worded response of the LDS Church to the Supreme Court decision came across as sour grapes and veiled insults, wrapped in a see-through lace teddy of civility.  I understand that change is slow within the workings of the church, particularly when being led by a handful of octogenarian white men who use fear of the changing world as a motivator for obedience and righteousness.  I understand it, but it saddens me.  I wish the change that I can see happening in the younger generations of the believers, in the progressives and the liberals, in the unheralded minorities, could work its way into the general attitude of Christians faster than the decades it will take the next several generations to ascend to positions of leadership and then pass on.  In the meantime, I will take what little peace I can from the knowledge that things are changing.  Glacially, perhaps. But they are changing.

And on a more personal level, how do these rulings affect me in my life right now?  Not at all. I’m not married. I’m not even dating.  Hell, I can barely get anyone to return a ping on Match.com.  But I am grateful for the hard-fought steps forward being made so that Tim and Ken, Wayne and Mark, Eric and Clay, Lauren and Tia, and a whole host of other wonderful, loving, devoted, and caring couples can enjoy not only the same legal status and protections in this great country of ours, but that those loving relationships can be they can be accepted and honored by the law of the land as well.  And I and grateful that, if I am ever fortunately enough to find someone with whom I can share my life, I may be able to take advantage of this progress.

To quote the great song: "It's been a long time coming, but I know a change is gonna come."

 

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Apr 21 2013

A Call for Pen Pals

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Hey blog friends,

As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, I have been very keenly affected with an affliction that I’m calling penophilia. (Which, while only one letter away from pedophilia, is really something completely different.) I have become infatuated with fountain pens, inks, and paper. I have been writing 2-3 letters a week, and I want to write more! I am looking for some pen pals to write good, old-fashioned longhand letters on paper and send them through the mail. Just think of it as retro email.

If you’re interested in doing some mailing back and forth, let me know in the comments below. You don’t have to be someone I know if real life (yet.) If you’d like to get in on the cellulose correspondence, I’m game. It’ll be fun!*

*May not actually be fun, unless you’re a total geek like me and enjoy doing things that most other people believe sound like the height of tedium.

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Apr 21 2013

The Bliss of Ignorance

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Being Existential, Philosophizing

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“We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.” – John Naisbitt

It was late in the summer of 2012—a standard weekday.  My car, which smelled faintly of wet dog and stale fast food, was winding along the lakefront road which I travel each day on my way to work.  The radio, into which I have only programmed a single station, was tuned to that very station: NPR.  

Almost immediately after pulling out of my apartment complex, the Morning Edition hosts began what was just another in an endless series of stories about the current state of the 2012 Presidential election.  During the 15 minute drive to my office, I heard what Romney’s and Obama’s debates over immigration, women’s rights, same-sex marriage, the economy, taxes, health care, and gun rights.  I heard a rehashing of President Obama’s first term in office.  I heard the opinions of average men and women on the street.  I heard polling numbers. I heard state-by-state forecasts of election results.  I heard pundits pontificating on what each candidate needed to do in order to win some small segment of the voting population.

I heard a lot of information during that short trip.  None of it was new. And certainly none of it was news.  Just information. Loads and loads of worthless information.

About three minutes before arriving to work, I heard a particularly ignorant citizen make some comment about the sorry state of the country, or health care, or the free-loading nature of the poor (I don’t remember the specific slight), and I lost my temper.  I released a guttural scream, slammed my hands against the steering wheel, then shut off the radio.  At that moment, I vowed that I wouldn’t turn on the news again until after the election was over.  Turns out: I still haven’t turned the news back on, and it’s been nearly a year.

There was once a time when I truly believed that to expose myself to the wider world of information was a valiant pursuit—that the sheer act of absorbing information would make me more enlightened, more intelligent, more worldly.  I believed that the increase in information would make me more tolerant of others, more global in my perspective.  And so, imagining myself as some well-read, thoughtful scholar of the world, I devoured information.   

Sometimes, the gluttony was purposeful.  Others, it was simply happenstance.  I would seek out news sites.  I subscribed to blogs. I clicked on nearly every article that a Facebook friend or Twitter follower would place on their feed.  I read stories about natural childbirth, gay rights, health care, corporate malfeasance, costume and prop making, audiobooks, religion, law, police brutality, poverty, hipster culture, finance, investing, business strategy, politics, and gun control.  I read about the wars overseas, and the difficult lives of those on the Saharan subcontinent.  I listened to science podcasts, personal finance podcasts, cooking podcasts.  I devoured audiobooks on the science of the brain, the processed food industry, and the power of introverts in an extroverted world.  I poured over every article about each newly developed technology or new product release.  

I truly feasted upon the information of the world.  I loved the idea that I could talk knowledgably about a wide variety of topics.  With the exception of sports, I can probably carry on at least a surface level conversation about even the most obscure of topics.  Because I felt it was my duty as a human to ingest as much of the world’s information as humanly possible.  That is, after all, what makes an intelligent, wise, and well-rounded individual, isn’t it?

It wasn’t until just recently, however, that I was able to put my finger on why my pursuit of information was so frustrating to me.  Most of the information I had gathered was without a point or frame of reference. It was worthless.

We live in an information age.  We are surrounded by information, bombarded by information.  As we just saw during this previous week, we have information shoved down our throats 24 hours a day by CNN, MSNBC, and Fox “News.” We have articles cluttering up the internet on the evils of gluten, the danger of having a hospital birth, or the trend of people getting married later and later in life. Never mind whether or not all, or even some, of that information is accurate—it’s information, and that’s all that matters.  

But does all of this information, constantly filling our brains, our time, or our lives, actually do us any good?  Does that fact that several of my co-workers spent the majority of one day this week streaming live news coverage of the manhunt for the Boston bombers make any difference?  What good were the millions of tweets saying “My thoughts are with the people of Boston?” It’s a nice thought, but do you think the people of Boston really know or care that the thoughts of a 34-year-old project manager in Redmond, WA are with them?     

I can tell you what temperatures basil plants require before you can safely plant them outdoors.  I can tell which brands of paper work best with various fountain pen inks.  I can explain what an expander and a gate can do in audio recording.  I can teach you how to post-process photos. I understand how to edit your hosts file on your computer.  I could walk you, step by step, through what led up to the financial meltdown in 2007 and 2008.  I could explain to you that ½ a cup of store-bought spaghetti sauce has the same amount of sugar as 3 Oreo cookies.  

What I can’t do is tell you the date of my parents’ anniversary.  I couldn’t tell you the birthdays of my nieces and nephew.  I couldn’t even tell you the names of 85% of my neighbors.  I couldn’t tell you the last time I spoke with some of my dearest friends from earlier in my life. 

When I instituted my NPR blackout back in 2012, I spent a lot of time worrying that I was going to become ignorant by missing out on the important events of the world at large.  Instead, I had become completely ignorant of the world around me.  I was so engrossed by the failure of our congress to act like adults and compromise that I never bothered to realize if my co-workers or neighbors were struggling.  I worked so hard at becoming global that I had completely forgotten about local: the sphere in which my efforts actually had the potential to do some good in this world.

The information age is, in many ways, a miraculous age.  It is astonishing—the sheer breadth and depth of information that each person has at his or her fingertips.  But despite this information, we are not becoming more knowledgeable.  And we are certainly not becoming more civilized. A simple scroll through the YouTube comments section of almost any video is enough to demonstrate that.  And I would argue that it’s not making us any happier. The age of the social network is not connecting us to people in more personal or intimate ways.  Would watching the 24 hour coverage of the Boston bombing help my sister, a stay-at-home mom with a 1-year-old and a special needs 6-year-old, in any way?  Would it help her be a better mother, wife, or person in general? Or would it, instead, make her sad, unsettled, and frustrated that the world seems to be falling apart, and there’s nothing she could do about it?

I have come to realize that there is a very big difference between seeking information and seeking knowledge.  And I think it’s time we start focusing a little less on the former and a little more on the latter.   Information is a pre-requisite to knowledge; you can’t receive knowledge without the informational building blocks. However, information for information’s sake is worthless.  Knowledge grants perspective and inspires action, while information simply informs.

These days, I don’t watch the news. I don’t go seeking out tech websites, or news feeds. I never listen to NPR. I don’t know (or care) what the federal government is up to at the moment about our budget or debt ceiling.  And it’s been fascinating how much my perspective has shifted.  For instance, while the Boston bombing was a sad event in which a few people lost their lives, on that same day in Iraq, 27 people were killed and hundreds more injured in a whole variety of explosions across the country. Knowing this information doesn’t help me in any way.  Frankly, I’d prefer not to know.  I couldn’t have stopped either event, I can’t do anything to fix either event, and so all I can do is live under the false impression that the whole world is going to hell, when really, these sorts of events go on around the world, and have for centuries. Knowing all the bad things that have always happened doesn’t mean that they’re happening more often. It simply means that you know about it. 

So, rather than spend my day glued to the television, watching minute by minute as CNN reporters kept giving us bad information in the name of being the first to deliver news, I helped a neighbor carry a heavy piece of furniture. I wrote a letter to my grandmother who lives in a nursing home in Ohio, and I chatted with a friend who had a rough day of her own.  

I don’t say this to toot my own horn, but to prove a point:  had I chosen to rush home, flip on the TV, and watch CNN’s coverage of the bombing manhunt, I would have gathered more information about a part of the world 3500 miles away, for which I could do nothing.  I would have been able to discuss the situation with my co-workers the next day. But instead, I actually tried to make a small impact on the portion of the world in which I can have some impact.  

And to me, that’s knowledge.  Information is just information. But knowledge is information that you can use.  And if that means that I remain a little more ignorant of the greater world, that’s okay. I’d rather try to make a difference where trying will, in fact, make a difference.

 

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Mar 25 2013

A Love Letter To Seattle: 6 Years Later

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On March 25th, 2007, at 8:30PM, I pulled my nine-month-old Honda Civic to a stop on the corner of 12th Ave and 62nd street in the University District of Seattle.   I creakily climbed out of the front bucket seat, stretched, and then reached into the back seat to snap the leash onto the collar of my six-month-old Golden Retriever puppy, who has just spent the last 14 hours wired like a cocaine junky, panting, and drooling on my shoulder.  Early that morning, my roommate, Tom, and I had finished packing the last few of our things into the U-Haul Truck, and had driven the mind-numbing journey through Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington to arrive at his old, and my new, home. 

It was only my second time in Seattle.  The first had been a few scant weeks earlier, when he and I had made the drive from Provo to Seattle so I could visit the area and determine whether or not I wanted to move there.  To be fair, my first impression of the place was not particularly favorable.  It was early March, which meant that it rained the entire time I was here.  The city seemed old and cramped, particularly when compared to the wide-open spaces and always-new construction of the expanding megalopolis of the Wasatch Valley. 

Nevertheless, Tom was going to be moving out of Utah and returning to Seattle in a few weeks.  (This move would prove to be very beneficial for him, as shortly after returning to Seattle, he got married, and now has two children).  I was in a strange place in my life.  I had stopped teaching voice at BYU, I had retired from performing after realizing that I wasn’t able to handle the lifestyle of an actor.  (I can handle constant rejection, criticism, and scrutiny…but only if I’m well paid for the abuse.)  I had blown my gasket at a friend and boss with whom I had started a company, quitting in as melodramatic and disrespectful a manner as I could conjure.  I was broke, I had declared bankruptcy only one year earlier, and I was really, really unhappy.  I knew I needed a change, and I figured that perhaps a move to Seattle would be as good a change as any. 

(Plus there was the matter of some ludicrously misplaced affection on my part, but we’re glossing over that part of the story these days…)

When I arrived in Seattle, I had no job. I had no prospects.  I had no money.  I was living in the spare bedroom of Tom’s parents’ house.  They were complete and total saints, allowing me to eat their food, and even paying for the storage unit that I couldn’t afford.  They let me bring a puppy into their house.  They even bought me a vacuum cleaner when I moved into my brand new apartment in Redmond, on the shore of Lake Sammamish.

As of today, I have spent six years in the Greater Seattle area.  It is the longest I have ever continuously lived in a single location since the day I graduated High School back in 1996.  And more importantly, it is home.

I have grown to love Seattle.  I love the craftsman architecture. I love the water. I love the greenery.  I love the never-ending flowers.  I love the dog park, and Pike Place market, and my tap class, and the malls, and the movie theaters.  I love the technology industry and the high standard of living that it provides. 

IMG_0036 color

But most of all, I love the people.  In my six years here, I haven’t made any super-close friends.  (Quite on the contrary…I’ve managed to mangle a couple of formerly-close friendships. But that’s another post.)  But despite the fact that I haven’t met my soul mate, I have met a lot of truly wonderful, truly open, and truly accepting people.  Despite living in an apartment complex with a high turnover rate, I feel as though I have found a community, a neighborhood.  I know most of my neighbors.  I enjoy my co-workers greatly.  And most importantly, I feel accepted.

That feeling of acceptance is something that I don’t know that I had ever felt, anywhere else I have ever lived.  Part of it is because of the person I became when I moved to Seattle.  But a large part of it is also the people whose casual and unconcerned attitude about others’ choices granted me the courage to become that person.   The pace of this place has helped to shape my personality, my passions, and my outlook.

I love having a place where everyone wants to come to visit, instead of a place that people feel like they have to come to visit.  I love being in a place where there is almost never snow, and where the summers are so glorious they truly exist in a sphere beyond explanation.  I love the fact that I can see greenery year round, that flowers sprout up spontaneously on every corner, and that the Rhododendron bushes are more like Rhododendron trees.   (Seriously…it’s crazy.)

I love sitting on the dock as the sun sets, watching the herons and bald eagles floating lazily over the lake then taking a short 5-minute drive to a posh dine-in movie theater or fine dining restaurant.  I love wandering the paths of the Marymoor dog park with the best golden retriever alive, and watching the model airplanes performing acrobatics in the distance. 

Luke Spotting a Duck

I love that I work with people who came here from France, India, China, Japan, Vietnam, Russia, and Texas.  (Seriously, though…Texas really is another country.)  I love that everyone here has a dog, and more importantly, they all realize that dogs shouldn’t just be thrown on a chain out in the back yard.

IMG_5388

I love the sometimes-infuriating nanny state that thinks it’s okay for gays to marry and for people to smoke marijuana, but who have outlawed trans fats and plastic silverware.  I love Pike Place market, where I can go to feed my pen obsession, my flower obsession, and my fried lumps of dough obsession.  

IMG_0061

Seattle, more than any place I have ever lived is where I belong. And, with the possible exception of New York City, it is the only place I could ever imagine choosing to live for the rest of my life.  I am grateful every day that, back in January of 2007, Tom finally had enough and decided to move back to Seattle.  I’m grateful that, even though I really didn’t like Seattle the first time I came, that I came anyway.  I’m grateful that I went through the hard times and the loneliness.  I’m grateful I found a place that would foster the courage and acceptance I needed to be myself.  And more than anything else, I am grateful that I found a place I can proudly call my home.

      Into Winter      

 

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