For the past eleven years we've lived in Roseville California. Roseville and Elk Grove are on opposite sides of Sacramento. Roseville is an incorporated town, a little over one hundred years old that for many years had a single industry - the railroad. As a result, there is a fairly strong sense of community that the influx of yuppie scum hasn't been able to wipe out.

The schools are a little above average, the cops have little to do, so they can be quite attentive (I got a parking ticket in front of my house once at 2:30 in the morning because my tire was on the curb - not the sidewalk, the curb).

The city itself is probably the best run city that I've been involved in (I used to hustle money from elected officials for a living). The elected officials are benign and the professionals are just that.

Our current home is an 1100 square foot half-plex, 2br, 2ba that we've outgrown. Actually we outgrew it about 5 years ago, but we've spent the last five years minimizing debt and generally honing our finances and avoiding the sort of preparation needed to get a house ready for market.

About six months ago we became aware of a great promotion offered by a developer, Elliott Homes. They'll buy our house if we buy one of theirs.

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Part of the delay in us looking for a home was the fear of having to clean our house up to get it ready for sale. Jeanine and I both work, our daughters are involved in their fair share of activities and friends etc. Who has the time? Now, with the Elliott deal, we wouldn't have to make the time.

Elliott's flyer was real straight forward. They appraise our house and give us 94% of that value. The 6% representing a full cost real estate agent's fees. All we had to do was pass atermite inspection. Elliott had two different developments in Roseville. One had homes that were smaller than what we were after, the other was a little too pricey for us. Sigh. And, before we could work ourselves up to get more house than we could afford, they sold out!

So, we started looking at other Elliott developments. The ones of interest to us were in Elk Grove. They have a few off of Hwy 99, an impacted freeway that runs north and south through California. The other major North and South is Interstate 5, which isn't quite so impacted just yet, so we looked over at that development - aka, Sunset Bay.

Sunset Bay had easy freeway access, which I like. Laguna West, the larger development that Sunset Bay is part of has received national press as a pedestrian oriented community that sort of lead the way on things like the return of the front porch and alley access to your garage, so the streets are a little safer and more conducive to neighbor interaction. However, a friend put it into perspective when he dismissed all that as a cover for smaller lots. Also, curiously, Sunset Bay is the least "Laguna West"-like development. Our house doesn't even have a porch!

Our house is right across the street from Apple's only remaining North American manufacturing plant. Since I do database development for Macintosh, I intend to heavily market myself to the folks across the street - thereby enabling me to enjoy the pedestrian experience that the planners of Laguna West envisioned for me!

Finally, the house itself is great. 1940 square feet, two story, four bedroom, three full bath. It seems like tons of space. Right now we can furnish about two thirds of it.

We don't know a lot about Elk Grove. The schools have an excellent reputation. My brother used to live there and he and his family liked it. We have several friends in the area and we're counting on them to clue us in. The park district is well respected by other districts. (Two of my clients are local park districts.) There is an ongoing effort to incorporate that I think I'd support.

I forgot to mention that part of the attraction of Elk Grove is that Gregory Shaffer and Sheri Hoss will be practically neighbors and will get to come over all that they want for barbecues, etc.

The latest gotcha is that our existing house has been living in a non-permitted state for the last, oh, 15 years or so. The previous owners, who shall go nameless, finished (carpeted, dry walled, etc) the area above the garage and used it as an office. We've used it as storage. We were operating under the assumption that the previous owners - ok, I might drop a few hints as to their identity - had a permit, we told Elliott Homes that we could provide a copy of said permit. Well, there isn't a permit and there is no way there could have been a permit and had their been an incident involving the area in the 11 years we've lived here, our insurance probably wouldn't have covered it. And I'm concerned about our daughters getting into a decent college as a result.

So, we called George O'Conner, a general contractor who came out and told us what we'd have to do to get into compliance. He's doing that now. Actually, Dave is doing it, but Dave's doing it because George asked him to. Dave's a sub.

The fix is done. George did a good job.

The loan application went in last week. I just love letting total strangers pass judgement on my life and my judgments.

Comments about the local phone company (Citizen Telephone) are bad. I wonder what Apple uses. The previous sales rep at the development warned us to be careful if we got alarm service because more often than not (or frequently enough to be an issue) they plug the alarm into your regular phone line. (I've since learned there is a reason for this.) Plus, they don't offer ISDN. (Roseville Telephone, our current provider, has had ISDN for years. It seems like a reasonable benchmark).

I can't wait until I'll be able to order phone service from PacBell. You'll know that de-regulation means something when it allows the big guys to smash the little ones. :-)

The loan was approved! It's amazing how credible second generation faxes are. The lender wanted financial statements. I don't do financial statements. The broker (Keith Paulsen, bless his heart) told them that I was too busy getting ready for the move and trying to run my business to be bothered. So, I got the bank to fax me bank statements for the past four months, which I then faxed to Keith who gave them to the lender. Voila! The lender was assured that the last two years weren't a fluke. :-)

Signed all the paperwork today. We'll take possession on Monday. Elliott is giving us a week to trade houses. The walk through is Wednesday 5/1.

Keith Paulsen ( 916-944-5999 ) handled our loan. He was great. Provided wonderful service. Answered all our questions and probably saved us thousand or so bucks in the process. Joe-Bob sez, check him out. He is also a realtor, so you could use him for all steps in the process.

Well, we moved in May 2. Anybody who has moved a family knows what we went through. Anyone who moves themself has my complete respect. We hired out the loading, moving and unloading, but did the packing ourself. Only lost one chair and one minor scratch. We're tired.

Greg Shaffer and Sheri Hoss, presented below as good reasons to move to Elk Grove, demonstrated their worth by stopping by on our first day with chips, beer and Snapple. They took a quick tour and then left. Thanks!

Both Grandmas helped. Thanks!

I had Lilah (age 10) write our address and phone number down this morning, once for her and once for her sister as reference. Molly (age 7), upon seeing her address in writing for the first time said, "That isn't how you spell 'Out'." She thought we lived in Out Grove. We need to learn to enunciate.

Life is good. We've been in the house a little shy of three months and I can't say how glad we are to be here. The primary reason is that, without exception, we have great neighbors.

The first ones we met were Mike and Laurie. They've been here a while and our daughters met them on our first visit to the Sunset Bay sales office. They've made a point of reaching out to the new folks that have followed them. You couldn't ask for a warmer or more cordial couple.

Mike and Alvina live about five houses down. The best thing about them is that they are on the same landscaping schedule as we are. We expect to finish our back yards about {mumble mumble cough}. Mike is a civil engineer and as such can explain which way water flows whenever I forget. Alvina is researching great deals on ditch witches so that we can finish our yards on schedule.

Brian and Julie live two houses down. We met Julie before we moved in when we bumped into her checking mail. She has the good taste to share my birth day, although she doesn't share my birth date. Brian has been sucked into delaying his yard care by letting Molly and Lilah 'help'.

Jon and Anna live right next door. Great couple. They've fed me. Jon mowed our shared lawn space. Everyone has one of these areas - lawn that is one contiguous block of grass divided by an invisible surveyor's line. Jon ignored the line and mowed my side as well. Jon and Anna are both technology workers. A lot of people on the block are, although none of us work for Apple, which is right across the street.

One of our concerns when we moved was how quickly our daughters would find friends. Lilah got her local friend first. Day, Ryan and Casie moved in next door about a month or so ago. Casie is 11, extremely bright and is welcome any time. She and Lilah have hit off just fine. Day and Ryan are experienced lawn & garden people and have proven to be a great resource.

I ran into John and Kathy at the sales office and boy oh boy, they have a seven year old girl named Allison (and a pistol of an 18 month old boy - Kyle.). Allie and Molly hit it off famously and Molly was quickly invited to Allison's pending birthday party.

Well that's all well and good, but I didn't have their last name. So, I called the sales office and asked Jack (you haven't met Jack yet) what their name was. "Zanzi," he says. Spell it I say. Jeanine is listening to the call and says "John Zanzi?" Turns out she works with him! Small world part 435. The Zanzi's are a great family and they are finishing their move today.

There are two other families (this week) on our street that we don't interact with as much, but the day is young.

So far we've had two great group things. The first was a barbeque that Mike, Laurie and I organized. We've got a nifty neighborhood park so the three of us distributed flyers and bought drinks (Elliott Homes donated funds to the cause!) and had a 4th of July party, with fireworks donated by one of the neighbors. I would guess that 40 people showed up and a great time was had by all.

The second was just last night. Jeanine organized a surprise 40th birthday party for me. Everyone mentioned above was there (want to see your name on a web page? Just come to my party. :-)) But, it gets better. Larry and Ramona from Palo Alto came up, Kellie and Harrison from El Dorado County, Brent from Dixon. Bill, Susie, Kirah and Jesse from Sacto. As well as Dan and Dory and Joe and Dayleen all came to finally see me speechless. Matt stopped by on his way to Delores's. Phone calls from others. It was a great party. I especially liked it because it pulled people from all parts of my life. I've known Brent since college and our first wife was the same woman. (Not at the same time.) Susie and Bill were our best couple at our (Jeanine and Lee) wedding. Larry Sharpe does the same thing I do for a living, only better and Ramona (who helped immeasurably with the party) is Earth Mother meets Martha Stewart.

Joe, accompanied by his good friend Dayleen, knows all the Blazing Saddles jokes.

I met Kellie fairly recently when she started cutting my hair and we've become good friends.

Dan and Dory share office space with Matt and I. Dan has been a great sounding board for my business ideas.

And they all came and partied and had a good time and the neighbors provided chairs and moral support and tables and trips to the store and good cheer.

Sunset Bay, boys and girls. Get it while the getting is good.

It's the day after Thanksgiving. My sister, Lynne, hosted us, her in-laws, my folks, my other sister Laurie's family for Thanksgiving. Thanks Lynne!

It might be obvious from this page, but I'm very grateful for my family and our ability to have the home and neighbors that are chronicled here.

Sorry it's been so long between updates.

It has been fun, for me, to look back at what I was doing a year ago. I don't think I slept well, starting about March, for several months. And re-reading this area, I remember why.

A year later, we've been through a tomato season, planted some flowers, put up some blinds. We had a tense bit of weather. We're finally starting on our back yard in ernest.

Just found out this week that we have less than five feet between our house and the property line. It felt kind of narrow.

It's my intent to borrow the Apple QuickTake 150 that I used for the pictures and to provide an update. And, I've had a few requests for clearer pictures of the family. If you want to sell a used 150, let me know.