MUDDSCAPE

Woof. And not like a dog, but like a kick in the boiler. We had frantic fits of cleaning and painting almost all the month of July and had the main push last week leading up to our first open house on the townhome. Paint, clean, patch, sweep, paint, window-wash, more paint, sweep again, vacuum, more paint, ooops missed a spot, more paint, clean up from that, it goes on and on and on. Here’s a peek at what we started with (Max’s room BEFORE we rented the tractor).

The Max Pit - Before Tractor

But at last comes the goal. Saturday, 1PM. Our place has NEVER looked so good! We’re finally open for business on our first Open House! It didn’t matter much, fishin’ was poor and we didn’t get a single bite. But we sucked it up and were SURE they would be beating the doors down on Sunday!

Sunday. Better, but only by degrees. We were open from 1PM to 5PM, and the first of our 2 guests strolled in about 4:30. All the internet advertising brought in was zip; the 2 we saw were just drive-by’s that saw our lawn sign. At least one of them was honestly looking for a lease/option but I think we’re a little out of their price range. There’s always next weekend!

We found out cats and open houses don’t mix. That’s the thing about an open house, the open part. It’s best to leave the front door OPEN, and most everyone was concerned the cats would use the opportunity to make for the hills. Not to worry. Even fearless Bongo made himself scarce. Very scarce. There are words in our language to describe what Sly made himself. Invisible would be an understatement. We could have been missing an entire wall of the house and he would have stayed in hiding.

Speaking of missing that entire wall thing…. Just after we finish patching and painting most of the interior, the construction crew that has been doing all the exterior refurbishment of our development decides it’s time to start OUR building. We have an end unit, so we have more exterior walls. And it was on the end wall that this crew decided to do an extra special job. They stripped the entire outside down to the framing. Then they stripped all the trim from the windows. Then they commenced to rebuilding it with what felt like 8 lb. sledgehammers. For 2 days it felt like we were one of the little pigs and the big bad wolf was banging on our outside wall to get in. Of course, all our fresh patch and paint pretty much got knocked loose, along with a whole bunch of stuff that wasn’t cracked or popped loose in the first place. Just this morning our new BFF Paul, the interior repair guy, finished with the patching again so now I can finally start painting AGAIN! I knew I missed a spot…..

We continue to bash away at both the commercial real estate investing (2 great property leads that we’re in the middle of putting together, stay posted), and have been putting a fair number of hours into the Internet Affiliate marketing programs we have up and running. Those are pretty exciting, especially when they finally start to respond with higher Google page ranks and even some revenue! It’s funny how 2 grown adults can jump with glee over their first earnings report from their portfolio of advertising sites: $0.77. That’s right, a whopping 77 cents! It’s a start. You don’t have to stay so tuned in on that one, it might take a few months for these things to start earning something with numbers in FRONT of the decimal point.

At last we have all the family birthdays, parties, and weddings out of the way. All that stands between us and the open road now is renting out the terra-digs (trailer talk for TownHome). So between that time and Thanksgiving, we’ll be rolling around the West looking for some fun, and rest.

To quote Forrest Gump, “I’m kinda tired.” Tired, that is, of referring to our soon-to-be-fulltime home as “the rig”. When I was just a lad, my two younger brothers (the twins) frequently named things. All kinds of things. Animals, cars, strangers, even boogers. But instead of the inconvenience of coming up with DIFFERENT names, they named everything “Eddie”. Even guys named Charley were sometimes Eddie. It would frequently piss off those Eddie’s who were really named Charley, didn’t matter. A world full of Eddie’s, that’s how I grew up. By the way, it hasn’t stopped, even though they are both well past the half-century mark. Except that they are 900 miles away so THEY live in a world full of Eddie’s. Me, not so much any more.

So what’s all this about? We need a name for “the rig”. Nicolas Cage had his “Eleanor”. The Lone Ranger had “Silver” (and Tonto). I’m thinking Wertle. And this didn’t just pop up, mind you. No sirree. A lot of brainpower went into this one, because I’m also thinking it will get used a lot. Wertle. Like Yertle, from Dr. Seuss. Which came from Turtle, as in the animal that lives inside of it’s own house (shell). Getting the picture? But Wertle? Well, with two names starting with W’s, it only seems natural that we add another, to sort of keep it all in order. And there isn’t much danger of us getting real famous like Dolly Parton or Captain Kangaroo, so we don’t need a really cool name for posterity to immortalize. So, Wertle. Maybe we’ll just test drive (pun intended) Wertle for a while and see how it sticks.

I wish people would stop asking me if I’m enjoying my retirement. It’s only been 37 days and I haven’t had time to figure that out because we’ve been traveling every weekend since I officially retired on June 5. To make matters worse, I’ve never known how to relax – just ask Warren. He says I have terminal spilkes (pronounced SHPILL-kiss, it’s Yiddish for ants-in-the-pants).
Here’s a brief calendar of our wanderings:

June 11-14: Granddaughter Carly turned two on June 8th and we took the rig to Sacramento to help her celebrate. We returned on Monday and had 3 days to work on our townhome, which we have been busy getting ready to lease.

June 18-21: We flew to San Diego to celebrate niece Madisson and nephew Parker’s high school graduations. We’re extremely proud of Maddie, who will be attending Marymount College and Parker, who earned an appointment to the Air Force Academy. As I write this he is nearing the half way point of boot camp in Colorado Springs. We got to see family, including little Annie (4 months at the time) and her big sister, Emma “the little entertainer” who absolutely LOVES her pink tutu. We assisted with party preparations including me decorating two cakes and Warren gardening with brother-in-law Jeff. We got home on Monday morning and continued work on the townhome for the next 2½ days.

Emma Jane LOVES her pink tutu!

June 24-27: We flew to Dallas, TX for our Commercial Foreclosures Boot Camp (not quite like Parker’s). We knew Texas is BIG and now we know it’s also HOT. We learned a lot, met some nice people and now were ready to go back to work… on business and, of course, our townhome! We had a whole 3 days to clean, paint and pack before the next trip.

July 1-8: Wow!… A whole week in Van Nuys at Birmingham RV! With help from Snaggletooth, the one-tooth campsite manager, Warren managed to back our 36-foot-long rig into a tiny middle slot with not an inch to spare. Imagine sliding a Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast into a manila envelope, plate and all, without getting any syrup on the paper. At least we had shade and it never got past 90 degrees and that’s amazing for July in the Valley. We were here for another celebration. Grandson Dylan turned one on July 5th and Grandma Wendy and Warren were there to make sure the party was complete with cake and shade. Dylan wasn’t so sure about the cake. He didn’t know if he should dissect it or take a lick. He settled on the former.

Dylan the Cake Dissector

We got to see family and generally had a swell time. The trip back home was almost uneventful. With one soda too many under his belt, Warren pulled off at “Casa de Fruita” for some relief. We almost cleared the gate as we pulled into the lot. That’s a whole other story and I’ll let Warren tell that one. We made it home, albeit a bit later than we had planned. And me, well I started unpacking and doing laundry almost before the truck door slammed.

Our FIRST weekend home, we decided to tackle 2 big jobs that have been staring us down for weeks. We painted the kitchen ceiling after a small repair turned into a much larger repair, and finally tackled Max’s room. With Max off to Boy Scout Summer Camp for 10 days, it was the only opportunity. You can get an idea of the magnitude of the task by imagining all of the monkeys in the movie Jumanji having a food fight and tobacco-chewing contest for about 6 months in a space 10’X10’ with new carpeting. And no toilets. Ew. We plugged away for about 16 hours between us, and it looks completely different! The trick now will be to KEEP it that way after he returns. We have 6 days to think it over. I wonder if he has any outstanding arrest warrants?

I’m going to rest now, and reflect on whether or not I AM enjoying my retirement. In 2 days I leave for Sacramento again. I may have forgotten to mention my NEW Granddaughter, Shayla, arriving on July 7th. Formula for success: Grandma Wendy, cookies, cakes, repeat.

Amerifest 2010 Rose Bowl Fireworks

The Fourth of July. Wow! In with a bang, out with a bunch of over-sugared, loud, but finally-sleeping-in-the-back-of-the-minivan grandkids and their friends. The oldest of the Mudd/Marks quintet, Jeff, invited us to a suite at the Rose Bowl this year for Amerifest 2010. He was attending to a couple of his best new clients, Passion Growers, who are now (thanks to Jeff and Premier Partnerships) recognized as “The Official Rose of the Rose Bowl”.

The Official Rose of the Rose Bowl

It’s amazing that after all these years there WASN’T an official rose. Anyway, here we sit, in a suite overlooking the field of glory where so many college football championships have played out. Except we’re watching 5 of the top Drum Corps International troups do their thing, which I also don’t get. A marching band apparently infested with pseudo-ballerinas swarming around the grass, every once in a while freezing into some sort of pose or design. I couldn’t see any order to it, and I was sitting way up high. I sort of expected to see an Uncle Sam top hat, or a waving American flag, or Betsy Ross. Nada. A lot of noise and mass confusion. Like a train wreck.

A Drum Corps band doing what?

All of this, however, didn’t hold a candle to the discord wrought by youngsters. We had 7 kids sitting in chairs directly in front of a long open window with about a 50 foot fall outside to the crowd below. That made for 4 anxious Moms constantly pulling and warning “Tushies ON the seat!”. Throw in 6 plastic cups of water and a bushel basket of churros, you get the picture.

An impending disaster?

Why is it that the boring pre-show stuff lasts 3 hours and the fireworks only 20 minutes? At least the fireworks were FABULOUS! What a great country where we get to celebrate the biggest birthday of the year by blowing stuff up. It’s not as good as it USED to be, mind you, where they would sit paying customers right in the fallout zone. Kind of like sitting in the front row at the Sea World Orca show, except the spray is on fire. The insurance companies have taken the excitement out of that part of our lives. But it’s still a good show, and the finale still gets my blood pumping. And we all still get stinging eyes and sore throats from the smoke. But WOW! It almost makes you forget that the show, in the middle of summer where the days are already long, starts at sundown and therefore can’t possibly end before about 10. And that’s before you gather up to go. It’s just the beginning of an already long night at that point. So someone tell me: Why does the drive INTO the parking lot enjoy 8 to 10 marked off lanes (5 minutes in) and the drive OUT have only 2 (1 hour)? God bless America.

“You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas”, says Davy Crockett when he rode off to join the battle for Texas. He died at the Alamo.

We thought we had gone to Hell, even though we had INTENDED to go to Texas. We attended a L-O-N-G bootcamp in Dallas last weekend, and discovered a bunch of things NOT to do in the heat. It was in the high 90’s each of the 4 days, with oppressive humidity, and I could hardly understand which language the natives were speaking most of the time. Add to this being packed into Gilley’s (that’s right, the famous one with the mechanical bull in Urban Cowboy) with 1200 other rabid real estate entrepeneurish types, and the choice between Advil and Morphine becomes academic. We did, however, get a BUNCH of great information, meet a bunch of like-minded folks, and have a great time. Front row seats 2 days in a row!

Front row seats for the Bootcamp at Gilley's

As we said, here are some tips about Dallas, heat, and visiting. DO drink lots of water and Sweet Tea! DON’T wear flipflops when you set off to walk “a few blocks” to the Dallas Farmer’s Market after the days meetings “just to get some fruit for the room.” 2 miles or so later you will find out it isn’t a “few blocks”, there are no cabs south of your hotel, and the pavement hovers around 140 when the air is 98. God has not yet invented clothing absorbant enough for that kind of trek. I’m glad the fruit was worth it.

Not necessarily wanting to crowd into group dinners every night, we found some of the finer eating establishments outside the hotel. The highlight of those was Dick’s, “The Shame of Dallas since 1985“. You can’t miss it. It’s packed in between The House of Blues and The Hard Rock Cafe, snuggled right up to Hooters. It’s filled with most of the drunk young women in Dallas, all of whom seem to be having a bachelorette party. If all the wiggly women and spilling drinks isn’t enough to light up your fun meter, they will gladly fit you with a handmade paper hat that sports a fun saying. Wendy’s said “I love blowing bubbles”. Mine said “Hi, I’m Bubbles.”

Dick's Shame Hats

 They don’t necessarily TELL you what your hat says until it’s actually sitting on your unsuspecting head. Usually everyone else is only too happy to clue you in.

We’re looking forward to another 3 days of  frantic painting, cleaning and packing. Then we’re off to LA for a week in the rig to celebrate Dylan’s first birthday! Although he just missed being born on the 4th of July by a couple of minutes, we’ll be celebrating on the 3rd. Look for posts! And don’t forget, you can subscribe to email alerts in the “Comments” panel.

Well, we lived through yet another grandkid birthday. Carly turned 2 during the week, and a crowd of about 40 fans and family gathered in a park close to her home to enjoy BBQ, cupcakes, blowing bubbles, water balloons and a tropical 97 degree not-yet-summer day!

Carly about to DESTROY her birthday train cake!

Wendy had another flash as well. So from now on, her friend Tippy the traveling Elephant will be bringing a Tip Of The Day. Look for these sprinkled around the blog from time to time. And don’t be shy about offering your own! If we like them, we’ll put them out with ours as well!

We’ve been talking about the MuddScape for quite a few years. Just talking. It wasn’t possible to do because there were some roadblocks. Work. Money. Time. And an appropriate rig. All those barriers began to melt away with Wendy’s decision to retire after the 2009-2010 school year. Amazingly we suddenly had no WORK to worry about. Which gave us the TIME. We figured out a solution for the MONEY by amping up our retirement “career” as real estate investors. And we took care of the last little bit by finding and buying a used truck (thank you Costco CPO Auto Buying Program) and then lucking into a perfect house-on-wheels for us, the Wilderness Adventure AX6, which unlike most 5th Wheels has the “lounge”, or family room, up front to give it a much more spacious feel. We loved it immediately.

It, of course, needed some Muddifications: we removed one of the two family room sofas and built in a large workstation to accomodate Wendy’s sewing stuff and our laptops (we DID mention that retirement career we take on the road with us, didn’t we?). And new window treatments, and some improved flooring, and of course a new High Def TV! This, after all, is camping at it’s finest!

Oh yeah, back to that beach thingie. It was all Wendy’s fault. She had this epiphany that we could, in fact, get to the beginning edge of the MuddScape with very little effort. So we did. Here’s our inaugural cruise in the new MuddDigs. Hang Ten!

Well, after threatening for many months we finally held the open house. We tucked the rig into a corner of the parking lot for a small group of offices and held sway for 3 hours on June 6. A good time was had by all 12 guests who enjoyed mimosa’s, juice, Starbuck’s coffee, a ginormous fruit platter and Wendy’s signature banana-cinnamon-chocolate chip coffee cake. Oh yeah, and lemon bars!

Lots of Oh My God’s, Oohs, Aahs, and “I’m so jealous!”. Where were these people when we had to refurbish the trailer? Clean out the garage? Pack up the house? Hold the garage sale? I’ve got your jealous right here! Really though, we appreciate all the well wishes, and are glad you are enjoying the blog. As we get a little better at video editing, especially adding audio, return to see some of our first creative attempts at travelogue! Of course, we continue to add some photos from each post. And new starting with this one, Video with Soundtrack! Check back for our frequent additions for even more media! Enjoy!

Gail, Mary, and Elda kibbitz, scarf goodies, and imbibe

W&W

To all of you finding this for the first time, and it must be because this is the first real post, Welcome! Tomorrow is our “Open Rig” party, like an Open House, but not, and we’re excited for all our friends to see where we will be for the next 1-2 years! They just started an experiment in Russia where 6 volunteers (at least I THINK they are volunteers) have been sealed up in a windowless “spaceship” for the next 500 days to simulate what it would be like for a round trip to Mars. We will keep them in mind while we enjoy the sunshine, new sights, smells, and sounds, and seeing our extremely large backyard in as much detail as we want!

Our final, final departure date is Sept. 2, 2010. We have lots to do between now and then: finish sorting and packing those things we either need to sell, dump, store, or take with us; interview and secure a tenant for our place (did we mention we are offering an extremely low down lease with an option to buy?); clean said place (we are definitely going to HIRE someone!); and we have 3 trips for grandchildren and a business trip to Dallas planned in the next 2 months.

We had a GINORMOUS garage sale over Memorial Day weekend. Furniture, tools, toys, clothes, books, and a bunch of household stuff. We didn’t do well enough to pay off the 5th wheel, but we did very well. We are still in the process of selling a few final furniture items – thank God for Craig’s List!!

We got busy in the last couple of weeks, in addition to packing and the garage sale, and replaced a carpet section in the rig with hardwood floor. Cleaner, we don’t trip on it, and gosh darn it, it just looks better. We also continue to take a little time for ourselves walking around the Shores and enjoying it while we can!