The plot is thicker than oil

This weekend, NetFlix queued us up for Children of Men. While I was disappointed not seeing it in the theaters, I can say it certainly exceeded my expectations. What a great film. Certainly a provocative story concept, and a well-realized future world (albeit depressing), but the movie was spectacular from an art direction, effects and cinematographic standpoint. And by "effects", I don't mean the garish, over-the-top brand of affair. Rather, it was a wholly believable world of near-future probability that was thoroughly convincing.

The acting was not to be undervalued. Clive Owen was great and the cast of supporting characters was appropriately rich and textured. But there were some shots that were simply amazing feats of camera work. In particular, the final "battle scene" that consisted of what had to have been no less than a 10-minute continuous shot. It was simply astounding. To think of the preparation to pull that off in such a believable way...truly commendable. That sequence alone is almost worth seeing the movie for. The crying baby was absolutely profound.

Recommended viewing for sure.

***

On a somewhat similar note (not really, unless things burning makes them consistent), if you haven't seen the story about the truck that crashed on the Bay Area bridge and melted the roadway, check it out.

If this doesn't shut up all those friggin' 9/11 conspiracy theorists who claim that jet fuel could've never melted the steel in the World Trade Center, what will?

I'm waiting for their follow-up press conference claiming CalTrans and/or Big Oil is in cahoots with Cheney over the incident.

Carburetors and conscience

I filled my gas guzzling Durango up tonight after going to the gym and winced at the $75 price tag. We've once again reached that point where the pump shuts off because it's reached the credit card transaction limit rather than because it filled the tank.

Regular unleaded was $3.31 at the particular station I visited. Rumors are on the wind that we may see $4.00 per gallon this summer. While we've been told that this is a positive when it comes to minimizing the chances that interest rates will rise prior to us finalizing our loan financing, it's certainly not a positive for any other reason.

Buying a new car isn't a front burner issue for us currently, but Lori's car (my old Pathfinder) is now eleven years old. My Durango is seven years old. Lori's car has only 10,000 more miles than mine. We've talked for a year or so about trading in the Pathfinder toward a new car. If I do it through the business, our accountant's continuing advice is to buy a vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of 6,000 pounds or greater. There's still an incentive that rewards you via tax write-offs for purchasing a company car of that magnitude.

But not long after I bought the Durango in 2000 and started coping with the sobering reality of a 12 mpg lifestyle, I questioned the big SUV mindset. It's clear that we're heading into an era of exorbitant fuel costs and a return to value being placed upon fuel economy ratings. And like I wrote about last year, I generally encourage this trend and feel it's the only way for true change in foreign oil dependence to occur. Let's face it, tree huggers won't change the American car-loving pathos, but $100 and $125 fillups will. And I don't think they're far away.

Neither is the decision whether to buy my next car guided by either tax codes or moral codes.

Measure for measure

Sunday is new house update day.

Today, we spent about 90 minutes at the model measuring every nook and cranny of the floor plan. Heights of windows, widths of windows, distance between windows, heights of walls, distance from windows to floors...you get the idea.

There were a few motivators this weekend. One, we visited a furniture store on Saturday that Lori found. This one resells furniture used in model homes. It is essentially a huge warehouse bursting at its seams with sofas, dining room tables, bureaus, chairs, artwork, mirrors, knick-knackery, coffee tables and everything a new home buyer could want. Since some of it sports some dings and scratches, you can get pretty insane discounts. Some of it is virtually new, including the six-drawer dresser and nightstand we bought for Emelie. (We're trying to restrain ourselves, trust me.)

Second, I built my much-anticipated Anal Retentive Notebook for Obsessive New Homeowners. In it, there are places for furniture plans, ad clippings, design ideas and, above all, my room-by-room budget spreadsheets. This stuff's getting into my blood.

And finally, not to be overlooked, we got our loan approval last Wednesday. There's some final paperwork that needs to be done, but we formally got approved. I think we lock down final rates and terms around June 1st.

This whole thing's going down as fast as oysters in castor oil. As Paris Hilton in a VIP Lounge.

We went to go take some new pictures of the construction today, but the house didn't look very different. Some additions to the living room bay window, but nothing formidable. Hence, no updates. But, in case you're interested, I put all the photo updates in one location: the OC Mehls Home Base. Check it out.

In other news...
Since I just got back on the Web site updating horse this weekend, I've been remiss in commenting on the girls' softball seasons. Both are a few months in now, and returned to action on Saturday after two weeks off for Spring Break. Both are doing very well and enjoying it even more. Sydney, in particular, has shown tremendous progress. She's started getting catcher duty and doing a phenomenal job. It's like she has glue in her glove. Now that's she's bigger than during last year's attempts at the position, wearing the gear isn't the same Kevlar-laden burden. Her attitude about it is equally as lightened.

That's about it. It's difficult to write coherent bloggage while Lori tunes into the incessant prattling of Desperate Housewives. So, I'll say adieu to you.

I've come to realize tonight that Sundays no longer feature the familiar dread of staring at an iceberg from the Titanic crow's nest. I now look forward to each week as another calendar check-off en route to August 16.

Save the carrots, just dangle keys.

Visitation rights

We got back from Anniversary Weekend tonight. All of us had a splendid weekend in Phoenix...Lori and I at the Boulders Resort & Spa and the girls at the grandparents'. The weather was simply spectacular. A pretty formidable rainstorm that delayed our flight two and a half hours on Thursday evening cleared out the Valley air and allowed Friday and Saturday to max out at about 80 degrees. Everything was in bloom and highly inspiring.

We had a fantastic private casita, replete with fireplace and patio. Set amidst the goliath boulders that are the resort's namesake, the accommodations were fabulous. Clear air, crisp weather, bright stars. On Friday, we did a few spa activities, had dinner at the resort, and saw a movie. Saturday, a full day at the spa, lounging by the pool, the best seafood dinner we've ever had, a little shopping, and drinks at a bar. Sunday morning, we regrouped with the kids and cousins and got all the details about the raucous goings-on at Grandma and Grandpa's.

After we got home, we ordered Chinese food while the girls jumped in the shower and readied for their return to school in the morning. On the way to pick it up, I felt the irresistable urge to visit our house.

I figure until we get sole custody, weekend visitation will just have to suffice.

(Four days since the last picture and we now have some walls and a near-final roof!)

Raise the roof

Lori pinged me at work to let me know she performed a new house drive-by today. The astonishment we experienced Saturday upon discovering that the second story framing was underway was eclipsed by the discovery today that the roof is underway. Holy cow, these things go up fast! Now if only time toward move-in day could race by with equal velocity.

Amazing how much seeing the outline of a roof enables imagining it over your head.

Doing the deed

This past Saturday, the OC Mehls made an initial down payment on a new house. Not any new house, OUR new house. A purchase agreement has been signed (all three billion pages of it), a check has been written, and a clock has started ticking.

And hearts are racing.

The major milestones left to complete include finalizing financing, visiting the design center to pick out flooring, and continuing to stockpile as much money as possible. All en route to an August 16 move-in.

During our paper signing visit on Saturday, we took an extended time to revisit the models, talk about specific details, walk our lot, and definitively confirm that this is the perfect home for us. The experience has been flawless, right down to extra incentives thrown in voluntarily (and unexpectedly) at the time of signing.

We also took an excessive amount of pictures. This batch has a lot more closeup details as we attempted to document all the little touches we were otherwise overlooking. That accounts for the first 7/8 of the photos. Near the end of the photo gallery, there are three shots of a home exterior. This is the same model as ours AND our color scheme. It's a very cool sage green and tan combination...we like it a lot. The final 6 or so photos show the progress of our construction...with second floor now being framed!

Have a look, if you're interested.

Our excitement hasn't waned one iota as we've started building a prioritized itinerary of things to buy and do. At some point, I intend to start a feature on the main OC Mehls site chronicling the progress of the house. Until then, stayed tuned to JabberDrew for updates.

Peace.

A momentous April, no fooling

To say the first week of April 2007 has been eventful is a goliath understatement. From the first day, it's been entirely transformational and effectively historic. And until now, I've been too superstitious to talk about it. How's that for an opening?

I'll recap in reverse. Thursday marked our tenth anniversary. It's true, we've been married for ten years...and I even remembered this one. (Witness the flashback.) Ten years ago, Lori and I stood on a hill overlooking the Valley of the Sun, amazed that a week of rain cleared the morning of our wedding and that the first sun in days broke through mid-ceremony. I still mark that day as one of my happiest.

Our actual anniversary day was spent in relative low-key fashion. Flowers and cards. Dinner with the kids. The true celebration, however, happens next weekend when we drop the kids with the grandparents in Phoenix and retreat to the Boulders for a two-day spa crawl. While I tried to reserve something in Sedona, it appears that a lot of people are trying to eek out the last bearable weeks of spring in Arizona before the solar flares begin licking the earth. So, we've reserved a great suite and an itinerary of indulgent wraps, meals, massages and treatments. Epicurean rhapsody. We're both looking forward to it.

So, ten year anniversary. A once in a lifetime event. Got it, Drew.

But wait, there's more. If you read on, for the next five minutes, you'll get a bonus blog full of momentous April news:

WE'RE BUYING A HOUSE!
Holy crap, it's true! I've been giddy for a week, but holding my virtual tongue until we got some confirmation today that all lights appear to be green. All systems are go.

So, here's the deal. This past Sunday, April Fools Day, Lori and I went to view some homes with our realtor in the Woodbury development in Irvine. We had looked at this community last year, before we had any realistic expectation of affording a home. We liked the area, but that was about it. Lately, with the subprime market fallout and the increasing rate of foreclosures, we started watching Woodbury a bit closer. There are some homes coming up for sale now that flippers and other overly risk-prone investors are getting burned by. Hence, there are some homes that are effectively new coming on the market.

So we took the tour of a few, liked some of what we saw, but were frankly left pretty cold. Bedrooms too small, living rooms too weird...but above all, yards too insignificant. Even in some models that sported a strip of grass along one side of the house, when you'd actually go look at the site, you'd see another house looming over the space, giving the vista the feel of a prison yard. At the prices being asked, it was highly disappointing...and a bit demoralizing.

We spent about two or three hours looking around that day, all the while realizing that we were continuing to gauge all homes against a community we also toured last summer. One of the first developments we looked at last year is about two miles up the road from us. The Cantara community in Columbus Grove had some really great models. One had been our semi-conscious benchmark for usable space and intelligent design. But the price had always been a bit prohibitive. And, we've long since assumed that the development had been sold out.

Driving back from Woodbury at about 4:30 on Sunday, the kids getting close to the end of their patience, Lori and I were extolling the virtues of the Cantara floorplan. I offered up that we should stop by the models again to refresh our memories about what we liked.

Upon driving up to the models, it appeared that the smallest model was actually being sold...usually a sign that all the property is spoken for. After going in, the whirlwind begin. I still get a little dizzy thinking about what transpired over the next 90-120 minutes.

As it turned out, Lennar (the developer/builder) had just released the final phase of Cantara the day before...about four weeks ahead of schedule. (This was a huge fact in probably the biggest lucky break we've had.) As one of the on-site realtors began showing us the lay of the land and where the Phase Six homes were, my eyes executed their involuntary scan. Every time we visit a new community and look at site maps, I always look for the biggest lot...usually a corner lot or cul-de-sac. And for more than a year, when I identify those lots, they're always sold. Clearly I'm not the only one who values getting as much surface area in this crazy county/state.

So as my eyes went down the street that anchors Phase Six, I see a big...no HUGE...corner lot that stands out like a tick on a Saint Bernard. Like Rosie O'Donnell's pie hole. Like Anna Nicole's pharmacy bill. A gargantuan v-shaped lot surrounding the biggest of the three home models. From somewhere, a price sheet of the models is put in front of me. The price for the biggest floorplan...on the biggest lot...is about $150,000 less than expected. And it's available. And we were flabbergasted. Lori and I shot the first of about a thousand amazed glances at each other as our respective voices probably each raised an octave.

The model we had loved to that point was the smallest of the three: a respectable 2,500 square foot, four-bedroom home. Nice, completely livable. The one that sat on this showcase lot, however, was the largest model. Suddenly, we found ourselves walking through the model...a 3,137 square foot masterpiece (in a relative sense, of course.) And, about half way through, I realized it was a five-bedroom floorplan. My excitement started redlining as I began to visualize not only having a guest bedroom, but also an office.

Plus a formal dining room. Plus a two-car garage. Plus a family room. Plus a living room. And, the feature that, above all, has kept us returning to the community time and time again -- Lennar's Everything's Included marketing ploy. Well, marketing ploy makes it sound like a trap of some sort, but rather, it's genius. Throughout the house, there are little golden EI badges that indicate all the included features. And, let me tell you, they're everywhere. The usual suspicion that everything you see in a model is an upgrade is completely dispelled. This model includes dark wood cabinetry and granite in the kitchen, designer pewter fixtures on all the sinks, amazing tile work in the bathrooms, custom this, designer that...all guaranteed to be included.

So, Lori and I start controlling our surging excitement as we climb into the golf cart to go see the actual lot. The self-control ended pretty quickly.

The floorplan model is situated on a 6,011 square foot lot, which frankly seemed enormous. The lot we're buying is 8,700 square feet. As we arrived at the site, we saw that the entire bottom floor is framed already. This, plus the piece of paper in our hands, gave Lori and I the next great epiphany: this house was ready for move-in August 16th. Suddenly, our entire outlook changed. From the house out in Portola Springs that might...MIGHT...break ground in October (meaning we could possibly move in next spring), our world suddenly had an actual you-move-in-on-this-day predictability.

But what freaked us out was the size of the yard. No, YARDS...plural. There are yards running up either side of the house AND a front yard that separates us 40' from the sidewalk. To be honest, the decision was almost impossible to deny at that point. We were sold.

The reason why I've been superstitious to talk about it until today revolved around the fact that because the property came onto the market four weeks ahead of schedule, Lennar was still awaiting some stamps of approval from the city that precluded them from legally selling the property. While I signed paperwork that night that put us in the #1 slot to hold the site, it wasn't until this afternoon that we got confirmation that the approval is in hand and all is clear. We go in tomorrow to sign the purchase agreement and make our down payment.

WE OWN A HOUSE!!!

Yes, we still need to secure financing, but, given my discussions with USAA, I don't anticipate ANY problems making that happen.

So, let me take a breath. Every day this week when we wake up, and every night when we go to sleep, we are like giddy kids. I'm not sure I can fully explain the full range and depth of our emotion. In fact, here is an email I wrote to Lori the morning after we put the property on hold...it better captures the aftermath:

On Apr 2, 2007, at 11:08 AM, Drew Mehl wrote:

I feel so good. I'm not sure I can express what this house is doing for me. More than just the purchase, more than just the perfection of the specific model, more than just feeling like an accomplishment of the whole loan/partnership thing...I'm finally feeling like a grownup.

Looking at the pictures again (for probably the third time today) and seeing the pictures of the girls walking around the construction site, I recall similar photos of Jeff and me walking through the undeveloped woods that were soon to become our Michigan home. We're making memories for our kids and I'm glad that they're old enough to witness our hard work and joy. I hope that same sense of value and accomplishment sticks with them.

Brings butterflies just to type about it...

Love you so much!

I've been grinning like a maniac all week. I spend my lunchtimes looking at Pottery Barn and Home Depot sites. If we use Lennar's lender, we get $27,000 in flooring credit. So we've been evaluating the virtues of wood versus tile. Lori's picking out bedding and curtain patterns.

And the kids...oh, Lord they're excited. Both of them have been drawing plans for what they want their rooms to look like. The inevitability now of having a dog and cat is beginning to set in. (Although they know we have to get our landscaping in first.) They're on spring break now, so each morning this week they come running into our room and we all writhe around in bed, giggling about some new envisioned aspect about the house. And it's not just them giggling. I'm absolutely ecstatic. I feel
like I just got off the hamster wheel and I'm finally being rewarded. I finally am able to give my family a real home.

It was so poignant that Sunday night when I realized aloud that we would be in our new home for Christmas. And Thanksgiving. And Halloween. It brought tears to both my and Lori's eyes. Multiple times I saw both the kids swell up with honest joy as they witnessed Lori and I hug. They fully understand the significance of this event, and that makes it all the more special.

There's so much more to say, and I'm sure this will undoubtedly be blog fodder for months and months to come. That Sunday, Lori and I took a decent set of pictures. We'll probably begin supplementing those tomorrow, but here are some of the blurry, frenzied shots we took that day so you can visualize where we'll be spending the next years of our lives:

See the new house

Well, I'm exhausted after writing this. Tomorrow, ink hits paper and this purchase becomes all the more real.

Oh, I almost forgot the very cool memory I have about putting the house on hold. That Sunday evening, after I dropped Lori and the girls back at home, I returned to speak with the realtor and discuss some finer details. At that point, the sun was setting and the models were closed. Geoff, the realtor/agent we've been dealing with, is a very nice, soft-spoken sort of fellow. He seems to have a bit of an Irish brogue...maybe Welsh...and he's entirely pleasant to deal with. When I
returned, he was the only person there. We walked the model again to verify I wasn't dreaming about everything that was included. He then took me to the exact same model that was six weeks out from completion so I could see for myself that all the cabinetry and features we were expecting really were standard equipment. We then
drove by another model to see the color that our house will be painted. He took his time and really put me at ease about the process. I knew I was doing the right thing.

Upon returning to his office inside the first model, I sat down in a chair and tuned in for a moment to the soft jazz that was playing overhead. As one song faded out, the warm tones of a female voice resonated throughout the house:

What a difference a day makes
Twenty-four little hours
Brought the sun and the flowers
Where there used to be rain

I smiled broadly to myself at the unbelievable good fortune that befell us that day.

What a difference, indeed.