Hay Holiday Letter of Truth 2023

Since there was no HHLOT in 2021 or 2022, I believe post-covid I have finally conjured requisite snark to make it happen. We got a lot of ground to cover here, so buckle up.

Darrell You Cannot Be Serious!

The knock me over with a feather news is that Rachel, first ex wife #1 and I got back together 18 months ago after 25 years apart. Yeah it surprised us too. We live together in my house in Snohomish now. Oh sure we fell into all our old idiosyncratic and toxic habits. But let's look at this realistically; we are so old we really just don't care anymore. The kids, how did the kids react you may ask? They don't even give a damn. Just about exactly zero reaction out of those three failures again.

I did however get to call Blade up and said, "hey, guess who I slept with last night?" He was undoubtedly cringing and half expecting some crazy answer like the mother of his friend or whatever. My answer: "YER MOM". That comedy moment was worth a month's worth of Rachel's BS right there. Blade didn't think it was funny. Not at all. I'm still laughing. I mean seriously, how often does a person get to use that line? Meanwhile we get to see our granddaughter Lilah more often, which is the most important thing, and another grand-munchkin is on the way end of February. His pre-natal nickname is Stitch. Get it, Lilah and Stitch?

We fostered Rachel's six year old grandniece for a few months last year to give her a start at getting into school because it hadn't happened yet. Complete shit-show, the details of which are not suitable for this venue, but that happened.

Prior to Rachel moving to my house she was living with Devon and Rafi in the Beacon Hill Ahud Home For Siblings. Three of their four respective siblings have done a stretch of time there. Still no kitchen or shower in the basement. And people call ME a slumlord?

Lawsuits SUCK

Had a tenant get drunk and fall down my external stairs three years ago at an apartment building and was injured. Extremely long story short he got an ambulance chaser to send a demand letter for $1.3 million. After much investigation by insurance company and lawyer, we went to mediation. Lawyer could almost guarantee that we would win in court, but that didn't really matter. It was gonna cost $200,000 to fight it, so they wrote him a check equal to just about ten percent of the demand to go away. Legalized extortion is what it is. He still lives there. Cannot evict without cause, post-covid. Lovely. 

I am sparing you most details of the neighbor I am presently suing who didn't get a survey, bulldozed my property, pushed the debris onto my side, built a garage and parked his trailer and truck ten feet over the line to this day. When I objected they threatened me. Oh yeah and then he pulled up the survey stakes and took my rope; you might now see why snark has been a bit in short supply lately.  I wish he would write me a check to make me go away....

Two Wheeled News

I got into motorcycles with my friend Paul three years ago, and unfortunately picked up his disease of collecting same. At one point I had seven here (he had ten). But credit Paul I actually made money on most, and broke even on the rest. The fever has broken, as I only have two here (plus one for Rachel) and one in Arizona. 

Unidentified Phallic Object

The longstanding lie of a "Pilot Shortage" has actually arrived and my friend Gary's son Garrick needed to get his private certificate. So I lent him my airplane to get his initial training. Garrick soon took to understanding the technology of the "ADS-B out" and on one of his first solo flights flew the course depicted below.  Clearly he is a rookie, but nice work Garrick! No, it is not a squirrel.

Tappet

My friend Tyler and I rode 2100 miles on motorcycles from Las Vegas to Seattle area this past spring through Death Valley and California gold country. We stumbled upon the campground below. You cannot make this kind of stuff up. Funny enough after getting back I find my KLR had a broken counter-balancer spring and one of the tappets was stuck, so it only had half of the valve operation, but ran just fine.

Rachel Explosion

She loves sewing, and is continually making clothing and related items. As you can imagine she has a plethora of fabric and various sewing machines. It completely fills the living room, and overflows into the den. Kelsey's friend Jamie comes in and sees this after Rachel moved in and deemed it a "Rachel Explosion".  That is such an apt description it became family lore.

Under New Management

After the worst of covid (2020-2021) and all the crazy law changes and "tenant protections" I completely burned out on being a hands-on landlord and hired a management company----and may sell out completely to some corporate owner. That was a nice change, but I am still bitter about the entire experience. Thanks Jay. I voted for you you POS. You have permanently raised rents an untold amount for the entire state. No, Fred Meyer does not give me six month's advance warning when they raise the price of milk. Only landlords do that. I'm so tired of socialist whack jobs on the left and criminal whack jobs on the right. Can we just find middle in politics again please?

I haven't gotten into doing home inspections again, but have slipped slightly....I still have my license and do jobs for family and friends occasionally, but have started doing limited consulting on others' pre-listing inspections. No traffic or crawlspaces involved.

And on that note, MERRY CHRISTMAS!