Last night, I came home from work early, loaded up the car with the kids, and went over to visit my 90+ year old grandfather who broke his hip recently, in two places, and was now in a rehab facility a couple of towns over from where we live. So, off we went.

My grandfather is someone I cherish, deeply. He has been the man I have always wanted to be -- strong; smart; polite; worthy of respect; religious in a quiet, sincere way; good humored; and full of love. He is our pater familias.

Now, he is diminished in body and in mind. He has lost weight, because he isn't really eating. While I was there, it was clear that the nurses were making him drink Ensure, a nutritional supplement. He asked me 4 or 5 times whether the kids had eaten dinner yet. Each time, of course, I answered the question as if it was the first time I had heard it.

I know that we are all supposed to get older and eventually die. But I'm not ready for him to go yet. I think that having the kids around cheered him up. The kids were adorable and very well behaved and the expression of astonished joy on the Boy Child's face when he figured out how to operate my grandfather's hospital bed seemed to make my grandfather radiate happiness himself. I hope he decides that he ought to be taking care of himself and eating now that he has seen his great grandchildren.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:19 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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To sell a house, to convey clear and good title, you need to be able to produce a Certificate of Occupancy (CO). A clean CO is needed because it shows the world that the town or village says that the structure you are selling is a legal and proper structure with no code violations on file. Failure to obtain and produce a clean CO will be taken to mean that you don't have the legal right to occupy the dwelling on the property that you own. As you might imagine, it is a big deal if something goes wrong with the CO.

Something went wrong with our CO. Our sellers, the people from whom we purchased the house we currently live in, built a brick patio in the backyard. According to our buyers, that brick patio does not appear on the CO or on the survey and thus we do not have a clean CO and we need to get this taken care of. I learned this yesterday.

I pretty much almost went through the fu*king roof when my lawyer told me this, since neither my lender nor my title agency told me this when I bought the house. This can be a real problem to fix because you need to fill out an application, attach a certified architect's plan, a check for a fee, and hope for the best.

Well, as it turns out, problem solved. The head of the Building Department and I had a very nice chat. First we gossiped a bit about mutual acquaintances and then he told me that he remembered inspecting the patio some 13 years ago and that it was built before zoning laws required a permit or CO for these kinds of patios and he would send me a letter to that effect. Believe me, I asked no questions designed to probe the acuity of that memory.

What an exceptional, unlooked for act of sheer kindness.

The letter arrived the next morning (today), by fax, and appears to resolve entirely the issue my buyers raised.

I now have a nice, clean, sparkling, shiny CO to convey.

Thank goodness for small towns and the nice people who actually think that from time to time they're there to help you, not hurt you.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 02:13 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 Cheers to the conveying of the clean and shiny CO. Clink!!! Burp...tee hee

Posted by: Wicked H at May 25, 2005 04:29 PM (BQhBn)

2 A clean CO means something entirely different to me. Of course, I'm warped that way. :: snicker :: Yay! No, really. YAY!

Posted by: Margi at May 25, 2005 07:56 PM (lWAiX)

3 small towns - yup! that's why i moved to one :-) congrats!

Posted by: sn at May 26, 2005 07:23 AM (6FCAy)

4 Since I'm in the house-buying stage, it's nice to know these things. And since I live in a small state, I know almost everyone...or knows someone who knows someone. Congrats, RP! When's the house-warming party?

Posted by: Howard at May 27, 2005 12:19 PM (u2JaN)

5 Yes, when's the house-warming party? Stephen and I would like to attend! I wanna meet the childs!!!

Posted by: Tuning Spork at May 27, 2005 11:25 PM (Q4TKE)

6 Most building and planning departments are headed by jerkoffs that thrive on a mixture of ego and a desire to muck up the simplest of issues with unnecessary details that clearly exhibit their "superior" knowledge and intellect. On the other hand, dealing with building inspectors is a completely different kettle of fish. While we happen to have a rare and decent sort of planning director, for nuts-and-bolts issues with permits and such I always go directly to the head building inspector first. And, while many people are unnaturally afraid of BI's, they usually are incredibly helpful without being draconian simply because they want to see jobs done right. Good to hear you got yours cleared up in a hurry.

Posted by: Mark at May 28, 2005 10:16 AM (JQvok)

7 Even though we live in a town that's become a burb to a huge metro area, you can still find the "small town" folks who do things like that just because it's the right thing to do. One encounter like that makes up for a whole lot of idiots.

Posted by: Ted at May 31, 2005 08:29 PM (+OVgL)

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In lieu of a real post, I give you the following "notes to self".

Hey, self, are you listening? Some reminders are in order:

*Don't use the stairmaster for the full 30 minutes when someone else beat you first to the machine of choice because it makes your knees hurt;

*Low sugar or no sugar candy or snacks are still crap;

*A clean Certificate of Occupancy is a happy C of O;

*Don't use your cell phone while crossing the street -- it's a good way to get squashed by a bus because you aren't paying attention to the world around you;

*It isn't necessary to prove that you are the smartest guy in the room and in fact by trying to do so, you might just prove the exact opposite;

*Don't guess if you don't know the answer to a question;

*Decisions made in haste, while they may be regretted later, are often the most exhilarating decisions to make; and,

*Have you recently told your wife how much you love her?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:47 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Yup.

*dropping stone down well of posts to hear a far away splashing noise*

Well, ain't going to get any better until next week. I was in Philly all day yesterday on meetings. Saw none of the fair city except the windowless conference room and the taxi to and from the train station. Today, after a whirlwind of activity, I am off to Washington D.C. where I am leading a small group of friends (about 15) on a fun filled tour of the City. I will report back on some of the more interesting details upon my return, but, it will involve a private tour of the Supreme Court.

So, gotta hustle outta here.

Speak to you soon!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:27 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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Sure is beautiful here in Guatemala today. The kids are out in the pool, splashing their grandparents and enjoying themselves immensely. So I decided to make myself scarce for a moment to give them all some time alone and what better way to occupy myself than sharing some of my newly learned lessons.

*Waking children up at 4:00 a.m. to go to the airport is an exercise fraught with hazard.

*Thanks to the nice Transportation Security Agency lady I now know that when zipping the suitcase closed, do it in such a way that the zipper pulls are as far from the handle as you can possibly place them. This deters thieves in the baggage handling area from doing a quick unzip and stick hand in move. She explained that if they have to search for the zippers, they are more likely to just move on the next bag. Now that the bags have to be unlocked, this is just damn good advice. I think of it as a reward for being nice to people and chatting. I bet a lot of people don't chat with this lady and therefore don't get this safety tip.

*There was an adhesive fake fly on the urinal wall in JFK, Terminal 4. I read that a Dutch company (and I read this years ago but I think it was in the NY Times) figured out that if you put the fly there, guys will aim at it and thus the amount of spillage on the floor is reduced by some percentage. As I perversely refused to pee on the fly today, I learned that I would have hated to be the guy responsible for measuring the amount of urine on the floor of the un-flied urinal v. the flied urinal. Some jobs, I realized, I would not be happy having.

*Finally, it's really kind of fun typing on a Norwegian keyboard. It has all these cool letters built right in: Ø; Æ; and, Å. That said, the Norwegian spell check will not be very helpful in checking this post. Win some, lose some.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 06:28 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I came across, in my wanderings, the following extract which I copied and pasted from I don't recall where but which inspired me to do another Behind the Curtain post:

In 1924, a Scottish conman by the name of Arthur Ferguson succeeded in extracting from a wealthy American businessman a down payment of £6,000 on Nelson's Column. Ferguson had met his victim in Trafalgar Square and convinced him that it was being sold to reduce the national debt and that he was the estate agent charged with effecting the top-secret sale. Emboldened by his crime, Ferguson went on to con other tourists out of a £1,000 downpayment on Big Ben and a £2,000 deposit for Buckingham Palace, before heading for America, where he was caught trying to sell the Statue of Liberty to an Australian tourist.

The information on Ferguson is scant, unfortunately. In fact, I suppose I can't really do a Behind the Curtain Post for him considering the paucity of material.

I found this as an aside in an essay about another conman, although it appears to have been cribbed without attribution from the FreeDictionary:

It finally dawned on Ferguson that America was indeed the land of opportunity, and so he emigrated there in 1925. He sold the White House to a rancher on the installment plan for yearly payments of $100,000 USD, and tried to sell the Statue of Liberty to a visiting Australian, who went to the police. The authorities had been looking for the mysterious salesman of public landmarks, and Ferguson went to jail, to be released in 1930. He profitably continued his trade in Los Angeles until his death in 1938.

Even if this is not really a Behind the Curtain post, I don't know what else to call it and I would have really enjoyed meeting this fellow. Although I'd have left my wallet at home.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:37 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Today's lesson of how to deal with a troll is brought to you courtesy of Linda, who demonstrates the proper way to heat the poker before applying it to the troll. It was a thing of beauty. And remember, a thing of beauty is a joy forever!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 12:10 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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