So far, so good.

My 2011 remains rather good for me.

January: Quit Job. Travel to Philippines and Singapore.

February: Retired. New Job.

March: Quit New Job. Friend passes.

April: Retired.

May: Still Retired.

June: Still Retired. U2 Concert in Seattle.

July: New job. Cannot build new house. Niece born.

August: Lolapalooza in Chicago.

September: Denali Road Lottery

October: Los Angeles. Bridge School Benefit Concert. San Diego. Las Vegas.

November: 4 consecutive Fridays off from work.

December: So far, so good.

How About This House?

Our awesome architect (Bruce at Black + White Studio Architects) continues to work on a new design for our house. We’ve reached an agreement where the staircase will be (always an important first step), how many bedrooms, the location of the fireplace, and, of course, the size, location and features of the bar.

The entrance to the home will, again, come directly from street level. Given the distance of the house from the neighbors (coupled with the neighbors having no windows facing our property) and the stand of trees blocking other neighbors, we will have the master bedroom slightly below street level (it’s the object on the right) and surrounded by some of the trees. This solves several of our engineering problems that increased the cost on the previous design.

A representation of the stand of trees is visible in this model shot. The master bedroom is in the center of the photograph while the garage is at top. We have quite the sloped lot and the overhangs of the main living floor (living room, kitchen, bar, master bedroom) should be a nice architectural detail. Don’t worry about the lower gray box in this model. That will be full of windows in the actual home. At this stage of the design it’s not necessary to model all the elements.

More of the overhang can be seen with this view. It’s not exactly a perfect model as the lower level will actually be taller and wider (less overhang of the main living level on the right side of the model). But all in all these views give us an excellent idea of how the house will look; contrasting exterior materials (concrete masonry units, stained wood, slate) on all three levels plus the overhangs and, as you can see in the first photograph, a rooftop garden above the main living level.

Not This House

The cost estimates and bids from our potential home builders (all six of them) came in last month. All of these bids were wildly over our architect’s estimate. More importantly these bids destroyed not only our hope of breaking ground this summer but also our heart. We loved the design of the house and, as many are wont to do, had not only imagined ourselves living in the house but also selecting furniture and planning future parties in the house.

This really stings us and it stings our architect. He worked many months on this design and believed, given his long history of designing homes, his estimate to be spot on. He informs us he has never been wrong in an estimate; that while some prospective builders will always come in over his estimate, bids do come in that are in line with his estimate.

So, with that, our wonderfully designed house will never be built. Costs are simply too high. As we’ve already paid our architect it came to our surprise that he is now designing another home for us and not charging us one more additional cent. We meet with him later this week to see his latest design.

Beautiful Sunsets

As I’ve written about before I bought a nice half-acre south of Anchorage in the Potter Creek area last summer. It is approximately 5 miles from our current house; at the end of a street ridiculously called ‘Scenic Hill Drive’ by the developer. I’m rather embarrassed by the street name for several reasons. First, the road, prior to the developer getting her hands on it, was a simple easement to properties not part of the Potter Creek development and it was called Hill Drive. An appropriate name given that the road is on the side of a hill and was steep. Second, I believe the majority of Alaskans understand what a scenic vista is and do not need some silly developer to tell them, in advance, that the road has beautiful scenic vistas. I’m hopeful that the name on the street sign will revert back to Hill Drive; that is, after all, what the city of Anchorage calls the road.

Last night we went up to the property and enjoyed the sunset with the dog. It got me thinking about our house plans which, while not stalled, have not exactly turned out the way we hoped.

Let me recap.

After interviewing several local architects we agreed that only one, Bruce Williams, would fit the bill for us. Working together we came up with a general idea of how we would like to use our space. Once confronted with an initial cost estimate that was significantly over our budget, we slashed several of the rooms from the concept and Bruce went to work designing the structure. A couple weeks later, after I obtained a topographical survey of the property, Bruce had the initial idea. It was wonderful.

Problems with the lot were evident but only once we realized from the survey just how much of a slope there was. From the ridiculously named road to the bottom of the lot abutting undevelopable green space and the Chugach State Park, there is a 50 foot drop. The drop is incredibly pronounced from the road itself to the mandatory 20 foot set back, approximately 12 feet in height. Yikes! We didn’t need a front yard, our yard would be on the roof. The backyard would be the slope itself, melding into the green space and the park itself. Wild flowers grow abundantly; it would be beautiful. Further design occurred and it is even better (click on photos for larger images).

Yes, there is a bridge. It’s wonderful. Without a bridge we would need fill and retaining walls to support the garage and driveway. Such things would destroy the “feel” of the house; instead of floating above the landscape it would be tied down. Plus, retaining walls are expensive. I know it’s counter-intuitive but raising the home off the ground, using concrete piers and an engineered bridge is less expensive than fill and compacted soil behind a wall. It’s not a large house, certainly the smallest in the entire Potter Creek neighborhood, but it’s not as tiny as our current 42 year-old house.

These are not the completed renderings; missing windows on the main living space, the lower level bedroom and the very lowest level that will be a large storage unit with double doors opening onto the down slope. Bruce is now working on the construction plans but we are once again hopelessly over budget. Save for a miracle in the financial markets, we will not break ground this summer. It will have to wait at least another year. Until then, we will satisfy ourselves with beautiful sunsets.

Worst Time of the Year

MANY YEARS AGO March and April were my favorite months. The sun would shine longer each day. Plenty of snow covered the ground and mountains. Temperatures were mostly below freezing. The skiing, both alpine and cross-country, was phenomenal. Birds chirping each morning as I walked my dog through the nearby city park. I even got married during the month of March. All was wonderful.

It all changed three years ago when, during a visit to my hometown, my mother suddenly became gravely ill and died. Nothing is the same after losing a parent. Losing your mother is the worst feeling, I believed, one could feel. I was wrong. Less than one year later my father collapsed and doctors discovered an inoperable brain tumor. He died several weeks later, peacefully, in his home. Losing both parents is the worst feeling one can have.

Through-out these past years our good friend Shana suffered through cancer. Very strong-willed and young, with a wonderful husband and beautiful little daughter, we all knew that if anyone had the courage and strength to prevail over cancer it would be Shana. As my mother died Shana, despite sick from treatment herself, send her wishes to me and my family. As my father lay in his hospital bed, a still in treatment Shana wrote to me, “Continued prayers.  Lots of hugs.” As soon as my dad made it home for hospice care, Shana wrote “Prayers continue for your dad.  Love you guys.” Always a positive person, once my dad died she comforted all of us with her positive attitude, and her kind words and outlook lifted our spirits.

In 2009 Anna and twelve other of Shana’s friends raced the Gold Nugget Triathlon, an all-women’s race, to support Shana’s battle with cancer. These awesome friends named themselves CAKES as an acronym for Cancer Ass-Kicking Exercising Superstars. The Anchorage Daily News included a few paragraphs about CAKES in the article about the triathlon. They raced again in 2010 for our friend, Shana, and had an even better time kicking some cancer ass.

I’ve heard that time waits for no one. After more than three years struggling with cancer, Shana passed several days ago. Anna and several of our friends leave tomorrow for Michigan for the services. My heart goes out to her husband and her little daughter. Despite my grief and loss these past years nothing compares to losing a wife and mother at such a young age. We miss you Shana.

Good-bye Mozy. Hello Crashplan.

After nearly 18 months of, what was for 16 months, incredible service at a great price I’ve cancelled my Mozy backup service. I moved all my on-line backups to Crashplan and it works great. Spent the extra money to have them send me a harddrive which I used to backup my files and I then sent the harddrive back to Crashplan. That saved weeks of uploading over the internet. This week Crashplan notified me that the backup has been completed and the Crashplan application on my computer now does daily backups to the cloud service. I uninstalled the Mozy application and deleted my account; leaving the following in the comments section of the account delete page.

By exponentially raising your rates you have priced-out long time customers. I liked your service. It did everything you promised for me. Now you’ve completely revamped your model of providing unlimited cloud backup space. Comparing my original price plan ($103.95 for two years) to the new plan ($545.79 for two years) it makes it really easy (too easy in fact) to leave Mozy and to tell others to either dump or not purchase your product.

This decision on your part was incredibly short-sighted, a public relations disaster, and a boon to your competitors.

That is the long and the short of it.