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Looking Back at 2009

Each year, I write a blog reflecting on the main events that occurred over the past year.  In keeping with that tradition, here is my update for 2009.

The biggest thing to occur this year was the new house that we had built in Las Vegas.  We were originally going to buy a foreclosure and fix it and sell or rent it, but there’s no real way to do that while living here in PA.  Not only that, prices of new homes sales plummeted, so to us it made sense to build a house to our specs for the future.  The house is truly beautiful.  We upgraded everything with no compromises.  Granite kitchen with full granite backsplashes, 20″ ceramic tile laid diagonally, upgraded structured wiring throughout the house (dual coaxial, ethernet, extra jacks, etc…), extra large lot bordering US Government land (nobody can build behind us – gorgeous views of the mountains), upgraded carpet and padding, upgraded bathroom fixtures and much more.  Of course, the best part of this house is the rooftop deck, with breathtaking views of the mountains and the city.  We are so excited about this house, it’s pretty much everything we ever wanted and we are so fortunate to be able to have it in this difficult financial times.

We spent Thanksgiving in our new house this year.  The family is not crazy about doing this, and I can understand that, but things change and evolve.  It’s all good.  It was our 3rd Thanksgiving in Las Vegas in the past 4 years.  But it was the first time that Jen cooked a dinner in the great state of Nevada.  The first time we went out there for Thanksgiving, we ate out.  That was totally disappointing.  The second time we were invited to a friend’s house in Las Vegas.  And this year, we had turkey in our new home.  A home isn’t a home until you have Thanksgiving in it.

Everyone always asks me “Are you moving to Las Vegas?“  I should jokingly fire back with the question “Is there tea in China?“  But seriously, we have gone back and forth on this question several times.  One day we are moving, the other day we are not.  I think it’s safe to say we will move there at some point, but with the economy the way it is, who knows what’s going to happen and when.  If I could cash out on our PA house today, I’d move tomorrow.

In the meantime, we will continue to do what we do – travel several times back and forth per year.  For me, I’ve been there 6 times this year and have spent a total of 51 days (including travel days) in Vegas.  Jen and Arianna slightly less, since I took a 2 trips there without them (to close on the house and CES).  In a way, we already partly live there.  I like to think of it as “dual-residency”.  If and when we actually move there, it will most likely be the reverse.  We have family and too many friends not to come back several times each year.

This year, I got my insurance license back after many years of being out of the business.  I am licensed in 7 states and have sold insurance across the country.  It has certainly been different selling insurance over the phone and over the web, but I am glad that I moved forward with doing so.  I’m always looking for new opportunities and businesses, and this has always been a part of me.  At times I consider starting a software company, but I am back and forth on doing that.  I’ve started writing a program that brings two of my interests together – finance and software.  It is not done yet and I’m not sure if I want to make it commercially available or if I just want to use it for my own personal use.  Creating the program for sale will require a lot of time and focus.  I’m not sure if I am ready for that right now, nor do I think I have enough passion to write software anymore.

Over the past year, we had the chance to bond with our friends the Puringtons as well.  We are all friends – husbands, wives and kids.  A nice combination.  We all went to Las Vegas this summer together in July and Jim came out to Vegas with me in October to help me move furniture into the new house.  It’s not every day that someone offers to hop on a plane across the country, leave work behind and help a friend.  That was totally rockstar… Thanks Jim.. I mean Jake…

I’m looking forward to Christmas with our families.  I’ve been working so much, and it’s been hard to be incredibly festive, so I am looking forward in celebrating life with our families.  I can’t wait to taste Frank’s homemade wine and taste my Mom’s cooking.

Most of all, I can look back at this year and say it was a great year of love, family and friendship.  I am going on almost 13 years of marriage next year, and it just keeps getting better.  I’ve got a beautiful daughter who is such an incredible kid – I am so proud of her.    It’s great to be alive.

Ciao.

Looking Back at 2008

Each year, I write a blog reflecting on the main events that occurred over the past year.  In keeping with that tradition, here is my update for 2008.

Travel
We went to Las Vegas 6 times this year.  One of those trips in May was with Pat & Kelly to celebrate our anniversary.  This was the first time that we ever went to Las Vegas with anyone, and it was the first time that Jen and I went without Arianna.  During one of the summer trips, we drove to Disneyland in California.  For Thanksgiving, we visited our friends Brandon (aka “Brew”) and Jackie in Las Vegas.  With all of these trips to Las Vegas this year, we had no time to go anyplace else!  We did however go to Seaside Heights, NJ.  My grandmother wanted to go, so I rented a wheelchair and the family took them to Seaside for a day.  Grandmom loved spending all of that money on those claw machines!  

Parties
Well, we broke the tradition of an annual summer party.  We all enjoy them a lot, but for several reasons I have decided not to commit to do this any longer.  But, we did host a great party for our friends this year!  The “Retro Party” which was a costume party themed 1960s/1970s was a success.  We held it on our Retro Room and we all had a blast!  Of course, we had a birthday party for Arianna and her friends at our house.

Moving to Las Vegas
We decided to give it a shot and wanted to build the house of our dreams in Las Vegas this year.  We prepped the house for sale, put it on the market, then the economy tanked even more than I could have imagined.  In 2 months, we only had 2 showings.  House values have plummeted.  Unemployment everywhere.  Danger lurks.  So we decided to stay put for now.  Now I have a house that has no pictures up (we took them down to make the house buyer friendly), an attic full of packed boxes (to reduce clutter), a brand new 4th bathroom (it adds value when selling a house), and the most depressing thing is, the Retro Room is no more…  We dismantled it in order to make the room more buyer friendly.  We poured a lot of time and money into that room, and now it’s nothing but a memory.  But, I have some ideas for a new “themed room” to take its place!

I lost my belly
In May, I started my “Not Diet“.  I have lost over 30 pounds and about 5 inches in my waist.  I went from over 196 lbs to under 165 lbs.  I went from a 36 inch waist to about a 31.  Now I don’t weigh myself everyday like I did for the first 6 months, so I can no longer tell you an exact weight.  It fluctuates, but I can say that I still have room in my 32 inch waist pants with some extra room!  I never could have imagined that I could have lost so much.  I weigh about as much as I did when I was a Junior in high school and I feel great!

New Ventures
This year did not involve any real estate or laundromats (thank God!).  I did decide to give programming a shot.  Freelance programming that is.  I did it for about 2 months this year (Sept and Oct) and did rather well I must say.  I made good money, but one thing was lacking… Passion.  I just don’t have it in me to go full-force.  I was able to go full-steam ahead for 2 months, but I learned that it was not my true calling.  So, I am not actively taking any jobs now.  I may do some programming from time to time, but I think I’m going to keep it on the sidelines.  Instead, I have decided to do something else…   Something that has always inspired and motivated me…  You’ll just have to wait until 2009 to find out!

Looking Back at 2007

Another year is gone. I will now sum up the last year of my life as I have done in 2006 and 2005.

During the first half of the year, I was taking flying lessons. While they have been temporarily halted, I will hopefully be able to resume in 2008. This is something that I truly enjoy and I am excited to resume my training. Well, I’ve been keeping my mind fresh by reading and using my flight simulator program.

We were able to travel someplace new last year. Yeah, yeah, we went to Las Vegas twice (what else is new). We rented a boat on Lake Mead (View Pictures) and visited a Nevada ghost town (View Pictures). We drove to California and visited the historic Amargosa Opera House and Death Valley (View Pictures). But this year, I was determined to go someplace different. We finally made it to San Francisco (View Pictures) and we had a great time. We had to cancel our scheduled trip in 2005 due to the sale of our laundromat. I fulfilled one of my greatest travel desires – to visit Alcatraz. We also went to Muir Woods and saw the huge redwood trees. Anyway, we really enjoyed San Francisco and maybe one day we’ll go back. Maybe I’ll go for Macworld. We also went to Santa Monica and Los Angeles.

Arianna is growing up so fast. She’s doing very well in school and is such a good kid. She has been accepted into a “gifted” program at her school – Odyssey of The Mind. Only a few students qualify.

We had our annual Summer Party (View Pictures). No, I still did not get a new deck, despite my saying so every year. And I rented the tent again. It rained in 2006. Good thing I got it in 2007, because we had a hell of a storm in the evening.

I had the chance to visit the set of CNBC’s Mad Money with my father-in-law and meet Jim Cramer (View Pictures).

Looking Back at 2006

What can I say… I am really glad that 2006 is over. This year has been one hell of a roller coaster ride in many facets. And now continuing with the tradition that I started last year, I will sum up the last year of my life.

Work
Picking up from the end of last year when I was notified that I was being laid off from my job of 6 1/2 years… My last day was supposed to be January 31. Two weeks before my anticipated end date, I received a call (while working from home) that the company was rescinding my termination and that my employment would continue. Well, after ruining my Christmas and going through all of the mental and emotional things you would expect, I was flabbergasted. After giving it a day or two to sink in, I became angry. I decided that I wanted my company to honor the original severance agreement. It was time to move on, even though I had no idea where I was going. The company agreed but asked me to stay 4 more weeks, which I did. Within a few weeks of unemployment, I found a new job close to home, which actually worked out for the best for me in several ways. I now work for sanofi pasteur, which if you don’t already know, is the vaccines division of sanofi-aventis

Travel
This year has been a decent travel year. In February, I went to Las Vegas by myself to furnish our condo. (That was an awful experience… All by myself, away from my family.) In March, we went back to Niagara Falls, Canada, as we did the previous March. What a great time that was. There’s nothing like seeing the frozen falls. We took a helicopter tour over the falls which was certainly breathtaking! In June, we went to our condo in Las Vegas, then just a few weeks later in July, we went back. We were supposed to go to San Francisco in August, but we had to cancel the trip due to the sale of our Laundromat. We went to Atlantic City twice, once in the spring  and once in the summer. Both times we stayed at Caesars, because the rooms are usually free for me there. We had a top floor “mini-suite” both times. For Thanksgiving break, we decided to go back to Vegas. For the first time, we went to the Grand Canyon. We took a small airplane – the views were spectacular! Jen wasn’t so crazy about the flight, but Arianna and I loved it (Pictures coming soon). Our last trip of the year will be Disney World. We leave 2 days after Christmas and return on New Year’s Day.

Business Ventures
We sold our duplex in Stroudsburg for a nice profit. We only owned the property for 17 months, used none of our own money to purchase the property and had a positive monthly cashflow! That’s the right way to invest in real estate! And we proved that such a method works. At the end of last year, we bought a laundromat. We thought that it was going to be a great business, but truthfully, it was an aggrevating mistake. What a pain in the rear. We were lucky to break even every month with all of the expenses. With great struggle, we managed to sell the laundromat and made our profit at the end. Since then, we haven’t been able to find any real estate deals that make any sense for us. We will see what 2007 has in store for us. I have a few ideas…

Family
Arianna continues to be apple of my eye. She is growing up so fast. It’s exciting, but sad at the same time. This year, she was a Girl Scout until the end of kindergarten. Then she decided that she wanted to do something different, so in September she started art classes. She is doing well in school and is such a smart and happy child. Jen has started substitute teaching in our school district and is trying to break into teaching full time. This summer, we had our annual summer party, and it was a success like no other. We had an outside tent and lots of friends and family. Little did we know at the time that that would be the last family gathering we would have with my cousin Tracy, who unexpectedly died one week later. And just several months before that, my Aunt’s mother died. So perhaps now you can begin to see why this year has been such a roller coaster ride.

Misc.
Jen and I consistently blog, so you can always keep up to date with the latest events by coming back to our website. But, just a few more highlights:

• I bought quads for the whole family. It’s been a lot of fun to ride together!
• I took an introductory flying lesson in December and I have decided to pursue getting my Private Pilot’s License.
• Went to a Disturbed concert early this year.
• We finally finished our Retro Room. We have created a 60s-70s Austin Power’s type room out of our bonus room over our garage. Complete with funky wallpaper, a giant lava lamp, red lights, disco ball, a ball chair, beads and a 70s-style cocktail video game console. I really need to post some pictures someday. It’s a total blast! A little crazy but very fun.

Looking Back at 2005

Well, the year is over, so I figured that I would share some thoughts reflecting back on the year.

Len Gets Laid-Off!
Yes, it’s true. It finally happened. And just a few blogs ago I was talking about this very thing. I got notice the other day over the phone. It’s not a very good feeling, but at least they gave me 45 days notice and a severance package (of which I cannot disclose the terms). I am glad that they did that, because they did not have to. So, now begins the fun task of finding another job to replace my income. But, in a way, I’m looking forward to something new. I am trying to get another position in my existing company, but we will have to see what happens. Life goes on…

My Business Venture
If you know me well personally, you are aware of the latest business venture that my wife and I have started. I have kept this quiet up to this point, partly because I did not want certain people at my job to find out. I did not want them having any reason to make it easier to lay me off. Well, they do not know and I got laid-off anyway! (Not that it’s a conflict of interest, because is isn’t. It has nothing to do with computers) Anyway, I’m glad that we did this, just 1 month before I got laid-off! I don’t know if I would have done it after finding out that I got laid-off. So, in the end, our LLC was created!

Las Vegas Condo
I’m glad that I was able to buy this with my Uncle Frank! He’s probably worried now that I have been laid-off, but he doesn’t have to worry! I’ve got it all under control. I’ve been preparing for this day for a while now. Now all we have to do is buy furniture for it.

All in all, it was a very good year. I want to thank my family and friends for helping make this year wonderful. This includes my Mom and Frank, Uncle Frank, Grandmom & Grandpop, Jesse, my wife Jen, my daughter Arianna, David G., Rod K., Erik, Tracey S., and Terri. See you in 2006!!!