So I bought a new house. That's my excuse for not writing a post in the last 8 months. But that's really jumping a lot of time.
Over the last 8 months I've thought of a number of things to write about. I have a tablet review to write about even. I'm probably going to save that until I have 2 tablets I can review at the same time, which should be soon. The point is that I have not actually sat down to do any of the writing because things have been somewhat hectic for me for the last 8 months or so.
Somewhere a bit over a year ago I found out that I was going to lose my job at UC Irvine working on the National Children's Study. The study leaders decided to restructure the study and remove it from the University along with a number of other large schools. So it wasn't like I was getting fired and it wasn't like I was alone in my predicament. There were hundred of people around the country in the same boat including people I had come to know from the University of Utah and South Dakota State University to name a few.
The bright light in all of this was that I would be one of the lucky few to stay on until the very end. I had time to look for another job.
The sad thing was, I didn't find one. I watched about 8 months go by and couldn't find anything quite like what I wanted. What I was really looking for was a job in Utah doing some sort of IT. In the end I lost my job on September 30, 2012, my 32nd birthday.
My wife soon after was offered a job in Salt Lake City and so we packed up and returned to Utah. We moved into my wife's parent's basement where we would ultimately stay for the next 8 months.
I was only unemployed for a short time though it seemed quite long. I found work for a company called EMC, which a few days before the interview I had never heard of. Turns out EMC is one of the largest tech companies in the world and had recently opened an office in Draper, UT.
Along with the new job came a pretty good pay increase for me over my last job. Living in my in-law's basement it didn't take very long with my wife and I both working to realize that perhaps we could save up enough money to get a down payment on a house instead of endlessly renting.
With her parent's blessing we stayed in their house longer than we originally intended and started to look at homes. Being that this was the first time for us to buy we didn't really know what we were in for. Home shopping can be rather heart wrenching. You find one you like then lose it to another bidder. Or you find one you can afford and realize that the fixing of it will cost you more than you can afford.
One night as we were putting together what we thought was a final concession to get over with it and settle on a house we liked but were not sure we wanted for the asking price an email came in. My wife was getting the daily market change emails. A house that was previously out of our target range suddenly dropped $20K and into our range. We loved the pictures. It was a similar floor plan to the one we were looking at making final offer on that night anyway. The main difference was this new one was in a better area.
So we all jumped in cars and drove off to see this new house. This time we were so ready we carried an offer pre-filled out with us. We figured we had nothing to lose at this point.
We arrived at the house at nearly 9PM. The owner was working in the driveway. The kids were supposed to be asleep. The owner's wife came out and said we could come in because the kids were not asleep as of yet.
Inside the house was very nice to our eyes. It was not new but it was in good condition. It had amenities we were not expecting in our price range. In short it was just what we were looking for in our first home.
At this point I could go on and try to describe everything but I am going to just send you to the photos.
Enjoy:
