Working on Settling In

This week completed my 2nd week at work here. The first week I felt completely useless. By the end of this 2nd week I’m beginning to feel useful.

Solid restful sleep continues to elude me. I think I should be over the 12-hour time change by now, but relocation is a major event and I guess I'm expecting too much of myself. What is so special about 03:46 on the clock? That is the time I keep waking up, and then I have trouble getting back to sleep.

The home purchase is moving along well. Closing/recording is scheduled for 19 August.

• I met with the mortgage loan officer, locked in the interest rate for the 30-year fixed rate loan and pre-signed all the loan paperwork. Interest rates are at a 30-year low still, so I have a decent rate at 5.625%.
• The home inspection was on the 27th, and it went well. This 12-year old house has been very well maintained and everything is in excellent condition. One of the requirements of our purchase offer was that the sellers have the furnace inspected by a licensed heating contractor and if the heating unit was cracked, the entire furnace would be replaced. The home inspectors are not licensed heating contractors so the inspection they do is basic, and the home inspection would not catch anything this detailed. My Realtor had something like this occur once before, and he always writes this requirement in his offers. Bless him. The furnace was inspected today. The sellers are having a brand new high efficiency furnace put in at their cost. I will have a brand new furnace with a warranty.
• This week I obtained insurance quotes and made decisions on all the insurances. I still need earthquake insurance up here. Alaska is just as active, if not more so, than California. Earthquakes here are typically deeper in the earth than in California so they are not often felt as strongly even if they are rather large. There is also so much wilderness in Alaska that earthquakes often occur in areas where only Bambi and Yogi and Bullwinkle are upset by them.
• The appraisal on the house is scheduled for next week, and once that is done then everything is good to go. Everyone expects the house to appraise at the sale price or higher, but of course you can never be sure until the appraisal is done.
• Today I went to Sears and looked at washers and dryers. I chose a couple of possibilities and will go to Sears online and check out the detailed information about my choices. There is plenty of time to decide and buy them and have them delivered and installed right after closing.
  The stove in the kitchen is electric, and I want gas. There is a gas line already in place behind the existing stove so no additional plumbing is required. I looked at gas stoves at Sears as well, but I have to confirm with the sellers whether or not the stove they have is a ‘free standing’ or a ‘slide in’ type. Until I get confirmation, I can’t make a decision about the stove.
  
  I e-mailed most of my women friends last weekend lamenting that I had a terrible shopping experience my first time out last weekend. All I currently have are polo shirts and 3 pair of pants (2 tan and 1 navy blue) and one pair of blue jeans. We can dress casually at work, but I need something besides polos and khakis and one pair of blue jeans. First of all, I do not like to shop. Last weekend I went to Nordstrom’s and Penney’s at the downtown mall. The Nordstrom’s here has no personal shopper, and I typically used the Nordstrom’s free personal shopper in the past since I don’t like to shop, I haven’t the patience for it and I’m not good at it. During this week I went to Gottschalk’s one night after work. If you are not familiar, it’s similar to a Mervyn’s or a Penney’s. I found nothing at Gottschalk’s either. When I was driving in mid-town this week, I noticed a sign for a women’s clothing store and today I stopped in. It is not a big store, but they have “Jeanne” clothes! They actually have women working there who help you shop. I bought some clothes. When I was at Sear’s today I also checked out the Lands End section in the women’s clothing department and I bought a few things there as well. Most things were on sale too. So I now have enough clothes to wear until it gets cold and I need warmer clothes. The first snow may occur sometime in October, so I have some time.
  
  My household effects that have been in storage in California are scheduled to arrive here around 21 August. Since my home closing is scheduled for 19 August, the furniture should be able to be moved right into the house once it gets here. My car is being shipped separately and is on its way. I don’t know when it will arrive, but Veco is providing me a rental car until it gets here so there’s no urgency for my car.
  
  So now that my first 2 weeks here have been filled with things that I needed to do, and everything is coming together well, I am going to begin focusing on enjoying summer and having some fun. http://www.alaska.org/
  
  Summer is the time for fishing, but I’m staying in a hotel and I have nowhere to freeze the salmon and halibut that I would catch. So I will hold off on fishing until next summer. But I want to do some “flightseesing.” There are various companies that offer seaplane flights over the glaciers of Prince William Sound, Knik, Denali and some land on McKinley. And I want to take a glacier and wildlife cruise to Kenai Fjords. I can drive to Seward in about 2.5 hours, or take the train to Seward, and catch the Kenai Fjords cruise from there.
  
  The Alaska State Fair opens on 25 August and continues through 5 September. I can take the train from Anchorage right to the State Fairgrounds and avoid the drive and the parking, so that's my plan. There are vegetables that are grown here in Alaska during summer when the sun hardly ever sets, and the vegetables grow to be huge. They have contests at the State Fair for the biggest vegetables. The record for a pumpkin is 707 pounds! Here is the State Fair website if you are interested: http://www.alaskastatefair.org/2004/aboutus/index.html
  And here’s another website that has a history of growing huge vegetables for the State Fair. http://www.alaskagiant.com/
  
  The Alaskan bears have been having a good summer this year eating hikers and campers, so I’m going to learn a bit more about the safety practices required for hiking in Alaska before I explore and hike by myself. Besides the bears, the moose are very dangerous as well. There are a lot of hiking groups listed in the newspaper, so I’m going to get in touch and do some walking/hiking with groups who know what the heck they are doing.
  
  This next week I’m going to join a health club. There are several here, so I need to finish visiting them and decide which one to join.
  
  Learning to Speak “Alaskan”
  Cheechako: Describes a newcomer, generally someone who hasn’t spent a winter in Alaska. (This would be me!)

Arriving Anchorage + First Week

It's a long journey from Baghdad to Anchorage. I left my room in the International Zone at 21:15 on Monday 11 July. Took the Rhino from the IZ to Camp Striker. Cecil picked me up and took me to his camp as he had kindly offered me a real bed and shower in the morning instead of my sleeping on a cot in a tent at Striker. One of his group was on R&R and so there was a free bedroom just for me. Cecil and Brian took me to breakfast the next morning as well. So now it's Tuesday and Brian is going out on R&R and I'm repatriating, so we were on the same military flight from BIAP to Kuwait. Showtime was 11:00. Well, when we got to the PAX desk, showtime had changed to 12Noon. And showtime just kept getting pushed back hour by hour. To make a long story short, we just stayed in an air conditioned tent waiting and waiting until about 18:00 or so. The temperature that day was the hottest it had been so far this year ... the loudspeaker at BIAP was announcing 120 degrees F. So by the time we were walking out on the tarmac to the plane that had been sitting there all day, it was a very personal and up close 120 degrees +. Finally got to Kuwait that evening. Had good pizza to celebrate.

The next evening, 13 July, at 22:00 I left the hotel for the commercial airport. The flight left Kuwait at 01:00 on 14 July. Kuwait to Amsterdam - flight time of 6.5 hours. Managed to buy Paul some of his favorite cheese in the Amsterdam airport between flights during my 4-hour wait for my next flight. Amsterdam to Atlanta - flight time of 9.5 hours. Had 4 hours waiting time in Atlanta and then Atlanta to Anchorage - flight time 7.5 hours. If you add that up, it's about 32 hours of travel time from Kuwait to Anchorage. I arrived Anchorage at about 22:00 on Thursday 14 July. I was sure glad to stop flying by that time.

Friday 15 July was a rest day for me. The time difference between Iraq and Anchorage is 12 hours, and that's a tough one. I did go to the grocery store to pick up a few grocery items. I'm staying in a guest hotel with frig and microwave and I wanted a few food items. Skim milk -- real milk and not long-life milk was priority on my grocery list. I've missed milk so much while in Iraq! But I have to admit that the grocery store was a bit overwhelming. So many aisles full of stuff. In Iraq I've been eating whatever is served at the defacs (mess halls) and for shopping we had one small PX with little choice. The grocery store here, Fred Meyers, has food as well as clothing and household items. I couldn't handle all the aisles on my first trip ... just got a few things and left.

Saturday 16 July was my first day of househunting. I had been looking at www.alaskarealestate.com for weeks and had sent some choices that I thought looked good to Manny, my Realtor. I am used to California home prices, but I did expect it to be less expensive in Anchorage. Unfortunately, it is not less expensive. And the market moves very fast here. If you see something you like, you'd better make an offer fast. We had 17 properties on the first-day's list. Some of the ones I had told Manny I liked, from the week before, were already sold, so he had pulled other similar ones for the list. The first place we looked at was the least expensive at $269,000. Very small, 1200 square feet, but clean and fairly well-kept ranch house in a dumpy area with a train track right in back. Well, it would have been livable, but I would not have enjoyed living there. So we just kept looking and driving around looking at houses in neighborhoods that Manny said were good ones. We got lucky and found a house I really liked. Met the neighbors who were out in the yard and talked to them -- they were really nice. It was a 2-story house and I had really hoped to find a single story ranch. But this house spoke to me. It was, of course, more money that I had intended to spend. It still didn't have everything I had hoped to find in one house, but it has a wonderful spirit and I knew it could be my home.

So then we had to try and contact the listing agent who was in a golf tournament that day. He didn't call back for about 6 hours and during that time I really didn't know if "my house" already had sold already or had offers on it already. So we kept looking and I found 2 other places that were possible backups. I didn't like them as well, but they might be contenders if I need them.

I guess I should say, as I write this, that I don't know yet if "my house" is actually going to be mine. There were 3 other people who looked at my house yesterday and the way offers go here, it's entirely possible that there are multiple offers in play. As I write this I'm waiting for Manny to call and tell me the status of my offer. The home owners are out of state right now and I don't know how quickly their agent will be able to get in touch. And until they accept my offer, other offers could keep coming in. So I could be greatly disappointed yet. And it's entirely possible that the backup contenders could have sold already as well. I could be back to square one.

"My" house was built in 1993, and it's very clean and well cared for. It's a 2-story with 3 bedrooms and 2.5 baths. It's in a spacious-feeling subdivision with wide streets and well-kept homes. It's one of the only subdivisions in Anchorage that actually has sidewalks. When you walk in, it's very open and inviting and the living area has a cathedral ceiling with a wall of south-facing windows. The entire house has a light and bright feeling to it, which I love. Behind the house is a greenspace! It is so nice looking out over the back yard to a huge expanse of green. I suppose I might have moose come visit. Total square feet is 2246. It has an attached 2-car garage. It's got an energy rating of 4+. The kitchen is a little smaller than I'd like, but it's still fine. I'm going to put in a gas stove in place of the electric one there now.

There is a fireplace in the living room area. Most fireplaces in homes here are pre-fab ones. I asked the Realtor why there are not great big roaring fireplaces here ... this is Alaska and fireplaces here should be fabulous. Manny said because so much heat is lost through the fireplace that they just don't build them big. The prefab ones usually have doors on them and they generate heat but they aren't real manly fireplaces. So I have a fireplace, but it's not the kind I'd really like to have.

If I can figure out how to put a picture in this Blog, I will include one of my home to be.

Update: The sellers accepted my offer.













Tomorrow, 18 July, I go into the office and start my new job.

20 July ... There are moose and fox and other wildlife that visit the building where I work. Today I saw a moose there. She had 2 babies with her, but the babies are in the background and you can't see them. We'll keep up the moose watches and I'll try to get a good picture of the babies soon.

The Week Before Arriving Anchorage

I'm writing this from Baghdad, where I've been living and working for the past 16 months. A week from now I will be a world away ... a newly arrived resident of Anchorage. From the desert to the mountains and sea. And a new job. I'm excited about the changes.

This morning I received an e-mail from my friend Merrilee who is in Malawi helping out a friend at the Rafiki Girls Center. Merrilee has a Blog. I clicked on the Power Blogger button, read and followed the instructions and voilà, I too have a Blog.

I've been sending out e-mails called "Bits from Baghdad" during the time I've been here, and I want to continue something similar now that I'm moving to Anchorage. A Blog seems like an easy way to share with friends and family.