Reeses Pieces

It took me 30 checkins, but I am now mayor of @arizmendhioak!

It took me 30 checkins, but I am now mayor of @arizmendhioak!

It took me 30 checkins, but I am now mayor of @arizmendhioak!

They shoulda let us duke it out

Well, I spent another beautiful Sunday morning couped up in a smokey, windowless Casino to try my hand at another No Limit Texas Hold'em tournament. You know, I have to admit, Casino San Pablo ain't half bad. It has a newly remodeled slots room that my Aunt would have died for, and a decent card room. Ok, the dealers often feel a little rough around the edges. I am not filled with the sense that they are always paying attention as players often have to help recite the events at the table so the dealers can catch up.

But if they could do just two things, just two things, they would have an awesome card club:

1. Buy some integrated card shufflers for their tables, like they have at the Oaks.
2. Buy their tournament chips from somewhere other than the five-and-dime floor. Nothing says cheap like dirty, plastic poker chips.

But I digress.

I wish the story I could tell you was as exciting as the last time. It isn't. I played very reasonably, and relatively conservatively. No big dramatic pots, no suck outs, no bad beats. Just one decent play after another. I won't complain, because I landed at the final table, the final three actually.

But right when the last person was busted, they did what I find totally anti-climactic: they stopped the tourney, counted the chips stacks, and awarded first, second and third. I came in third by the narrowest of margins, and the person who came in second had never played [in person] before. If they would have let us fight to the bitter end, I most certainly would have come in second, at least. Tsk. Tsk.

But I am not complaining. I won $220.

I did "ok"

Yesterday I was struck by an urge. I don't know where is came from exactly (perhaps my addiction?), or why, but I really wanted to play poker. And given that Arin and I didn't have plans until the afternoon and our Fourth of July plans were, well, on the Fourth of July, I figured I would try one last time to get into a tournament at Casino San Pablo. I had been twice before and twice I only made it into the tournament as an alternate and when my name came up and I sat down at the table, I was so far behind the other players that I quickly got trounced. But this time I arrived to a very empty casino and there was plenty of room in the tourney.

You never know who might live next door...

This weekend our block actually got organized enough to throw a block party. Arin and I were nervous at first thinking that we would close off traffic to the street and then stand there with Adam and Amanda (our intrepid "young hip neighbors" across the street) kicking asphalt, drinking a beer wondering where the hell everybody was. But our fears were unfounded. Over 40 people came out to our little party in the street. Arin and I were out there from 2:00pm and finally went back inside around 9:15pm.
Our block has a lot of wonderful people on it, coming from so many different backgrounds, but by far one of the biggest surprises of the day was us learning that not two doors down from us live Kumar Pallana, also known as Mr. Littlejeans from Rushmore, and his son, Dipak Pallana - who played Mr. Adams, the math teacher. Of course I mention Rushmore because it happens to be one of our favorite movies of all time, so it was tremendous for us to learn that one of our favorite characters from the movie is our neighbor!
And Hollywood is just one part of his amazing life story. He is 86 years old. He was born and grew up in India, in a family full of freedom fighters. He traveled to Africa where he got his start in show business spinning plates and juggling. Yadda yadda yadda, he moved to Oakland and lives next door to us! Kazam!

Making due with what we have

In this crazy real estate market Arin and I have have come back to the question, "why move at all?" A very good question considering our house is as big as most of the places we can afford anyways. So the next question we ask ourselves is, "is there something we could do to our existing house to make it what we want out of our next house?" We have often toyed with this idea. Especially me, who I think has an architect buried deep inside them somewhere thanks to my father.
But it wasn't until one day when Arin and I were sitting in our car in our driveway in the rain in total despair over the houses we had seen that we stumbled upon what we both thought would be a great remodel idea. We had always limited ourselves to exploring ways we could rearrange interior walls, but in most respects, the house already has an ideal layout for its size:

However, we never thought of moving exterior walls to make more room inside. And when we began to consider the possibilities, we quickly stumbled upon an idea we both loved:

Of course, this plan is not without it's problems. Very few of which actually has to do with the design. The problem is with the property itself. We shared this plan with our realtor, Sandi Klemmer, and she told us what we were in denial about: its not likely that the remodel is likely to help your property value enough to justify the cost. After all, Arin and I are not looking to live here for the rest of our lives, we just want it to last five more years. And in that time frame, we don't think we would be able to recoup our costs.
Of course, we could be wrong, but when you start talking about a $75,000-$100,000 remodel (at least), you can't fool around.
No worries. Arin and I have a million ideas for the interior - primarily that back room right behind our bedroom... just punch a hole through the wall by the closet, move the laundry to the basement, and you could make a great changing room, a larger closet, who knows?

"Pre-pre-emptive offers..."

No doubt if you read SF Gate you already saw or read the latest headline about the average home in the Bay Area appreciating 21% in the last 12 months, meaning that many people made more money just sitting on their coach watching TV than they did at their full time job. And to top it all off, SF Gate also had a column about the "pre-emptive offer" strategy that many buyers are resorting to. See a house you like? Why wait for the open house? Just make an offer the seller can't refuse before anyone else has a chance to see it.

What's next? See a house you like? Why wait for the owner to put it up for sale? Just walk up to the front door with a suitcase full of cash.

It's funny, because its true. Just you wait and see.

Surreal Estate

You know what is scary after searching for a home in the Bay Area? A housing development like this one doesn't sound so crazy. I mean hell, if a 2000 square foot lot in Piedmont costs at least a million, then perhaps it is better to leverage the economy of scale and purchase the entire state of California.

How much would you pay for a 1 bedroom shack?

The Alameda Times today put on the cover of their Real Estate section the photo of a new and upcoming property in Alameda, a relatively cute residential area in the San Francisco/Bay Area.
If you are looking for a cozy cottage to call home then this might just be the property for you. This piece of property has 2 cottages built on it, with each cottage having only one bedroom. But as you can see from the photo, they have tons of charm!
But what makes this property so attractive is its oh-so-affordable Bay Area sticker price... Before you continue reading, think for a second about how much you think this property is worth. Picture the number in your mind. Remember the number. Now read on.