Wills..... What's the Plan? What are you doing in Santa Fe? Waiting for more data and staying patient!

So what the hell is going on with you Wills?

You sold your beautiful home in Lake Jackson......

Shoved all your Earthly Possessions (which wasn't much) into a 10x15 storage room, put the Red Stang in a Big Horse Stall.....

Moved away from Family..... I would say Friends and Family, but I didn't really have any Friends....

Not a Pity Party, just a statement of fact.....  I never really tried to have any friends.... so it was a balance of consequence..... Not Surprising.

And jet-ed up to Santa Fe NM to camp out in a cozy little casita just north of the plaza.

So what's it all about Alfie?

Well - it's part of a 5 year plan to sell everything and move to an environment and climate that is more suitable to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.....

The Essence of Discovery.

And part of Discovery is waiting for the scene to unfold..... waiting on a sign.... a direction.... an omen.... a piece of data... something to....

Discover.

Waiting - Patience - Data Driven Decisions.....

Let's talk about that little triplet.

I'm 52 and as I look back on those 52 years or at least the formative part of those 52 years where I had some control of the decisions and direction taken, I can say almost without exception that every mistake, every misstep, every calamity that set me back years..... or a lifetime.... began with....

Being Impatient, Making an Assumption, Moving without a Clear Understanding of the Situation or What Lay Ahead....

Yep.... Every Big Mistake I can remember began with Being in a Hurry and Moving Forward in a Fog.

Let's take the situation I'm in now....Let's lay out some of the facts:

• I have enough furnishings stored away to comfortably furnish a 2 bedroom house, condo or apartment.  I'm paying $150 / month for the storage.  To replace the big necessary stuff like Living Room and Dining Room furniture, TV / Entertainment System, 2 beds / dressers, Washer / Dryer, etc. would probably cost $8 - $10000...... but it's gonna cost me at least $2000 - $2500 to move it across the country and that's if I do it myself with a UHaul Truck and hiring laborers on both ends to load and unload.
• One option is to catch a flight home, rent a truck and a couple of guys and move the stuff out of storage and have an estate / yard sale at a family member's house and get as much as I can (probably 30 cents on the dollar) for what's in storage and then move forward with one of the following options:

1. Rent furnished apartments, condos, townhouses or apartments.  It's what I've done in Santa Fe and for a surprisingly reasonable rate.  A 2 Bedroom UNFURNISHED apartment in Lake Jackson that is nowhere near the quality of this casita is $1200 - $1350 a month..... then you have to furnish it, pay the utilities and put up with the noisy neighbors.  I rented a beautiful 1000 ft2 2 BR 1 Bath Casita 6 blocks from the Santa Fe Plaza that is beautifully decorated and furnished with everything from the big stuff (2 TV's - 1 in the Living Room, 1 in one of the bedrooms), all the furniture, the most comfortable queen size bed I've ever slept in.... to the little stuff like every kitchen utensil the average person needs (unless you need a cast iron skillet), dishwashing soap, laundry detergent, toiletries, trash bags, etc..... you get the picture - this place is outfitted AND ALL THE UTILITIES ARE PAID including Cable and High Speed Internet - for $1500 / month!  Now this is not typical.... I got a good deal.... but where one deal is had..... another is not far behind. The problem is that these furnished, reasonable opportunities may not exist in every situation, city, locale - Craigslist or Zillow is a good place to look OR I can opt for what's behind Curtain #....
2. Use the proceeds from the sale of the stuff I had and what I saved on moving it and buy a few critical Spartan furnishings when I get to a new semi-permanent location that is furnished housing deficient..... Definitely easier on the Logistics and Stress Level..... OR....I could do it the hard way.....
3. I could just NOT SELL ANYTHING AND Keep ALL my belongings and move them around the country from one unfurnished apartment / condo location to another.

I think you can figure out which one I would druther.....

But where do I move to..... I mean there's got to be some Method to the Madness..... Otherwise it's just....

Madness.

So what is the Catalyst.... the Initiator.... the Driver?

Well, I've pretty much decided it's.....

Employment.....

Work.... that dreaded 4 letter word.

Aaah.... it's not so bad.... it's just like every other part of life.... you gotta manage it....

Too little is not so good cause you stress out over Not Enough Money.... and you go Brain Dead....Cause you're not challenging yourself to figure out anything..... to problem solve.... to Create Something from Nothing....

Too much is not so good cause it dominates your life and destroys everything we're all hopefully trying to accomplish which is a.....

Healthy Lifestyle.

I moved away from the Mecca for Chemical Engineering, i.e. the Gulf Coast....

And have Gone West My Son.... and North.... or North by Northwest.... Speaking of Alfie.....

and am mining for nuggets of work in the Mountains..... not so easy.

But that's OK..... I can afford to be patient.... and wait...... for a sign.... or an opportunity.

Speaking of Opportunities.....

Had a potential opportunity come up this week.... probably only about a 25% chance of it working out....

But there's a chance.....

Seems a very old and large winery in California needs someone to come in and put together a Predictive and Preventative Maintenance (PPM) Plan for their equipment. In essence, it's a structured, schedule driven plan to do maintenance on equipment BEFORE a breakdown occurs by looking at the historical cycles of failure and incorporating the Manufacturer's Recommendations for Routine Maintenance.

It's one of the things Engineers do.... to make sure Shit runs..... so you can have your Wine.... without Whine.

So I wrote up a Proposal for the Work and submitted it to the Technical Service firm that's middlemanning the operation....

And we'll see what happens.

My rent is paid on the little casita until 01/28/15.....

Today I bought a ticket on Southwest to fly me back home on 01/28.... I'm thinking I'll know by then if this job opportunity is gonna pan out.

If it doesn't, I'll have my little yard sale....  lean out on some possessions....

Swap the cargo challenged Pony for another F-150 STX..... Load 'er up with what really matters to me....

And head back for the Mountains.....

And wait....

For a sign.