I bailed on the Palo Alto TIC. They needed to get on with their plans, and after lookng everything over carefully, I decided the down payment was too much of a killer. The housing market here functions because people don't have to come up with a full 20% or even 10% down payment--otherwise, the median price for San Mateo County for homes under $1 million would be a lot less than $769,000 (the average was $778,143). Most people can't come up with $70,000, let alone $140,000, so everyone who makes money from home sales chips in to arrange creative financing with more attainable down payments. The most common workaround is to finance 80% of the price with one loan, then get the other 20% with another loan, since lenders don't like to finance more than 80%. Unfortunately, in this case the loan is all from one lender, for whatever reason, so it's a 20% down payment. Which is too much for me, and that's that.

My college reunion is this weekend. I haven't packed, I just reserved a car today. I have no idea how I'm getting back from the airport on Tuesday night, or whether I'll have time to do aikido on Thursday. I don't know if I'll have any time to train while I'm out there, or who I'm going to see, or when.

I love traveling. At least I'm mostly caught up on work.

I think, if any property-buying silliness is going to be something well within my finances, that now, when I'm pretty well-paid and have three weeks of vacation time, is a good time in my life to take lots of vacations. My next one will probably be a road trip up to Ashland, Oregon, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, as well as several friends of my dojo who have offered me a bedroom. Now also seems like a good time to go back to Europe for a couple weeks.

I love my job.