Life Transplanet

We left Denver last night at 1am and arrived in Puerto Rico at 11am.  I’ve never taken a red eye before and it actually worked out pretty well I think.  This is the first time I have been able to navigate San Juan during the day.  It is SOOO much better than at night. 

Sunrise over an airplane in Charlotte

On our way to Rincon we stopped at a little taco / burrito place and had lunch in Hatillo.  It was a really cool, clean and friendly place.  Good food and a Jamacia soda. 

 We then came to Rincon where we will be staying.  Its a much different place than the eastern side of the island.  A bit more laid back.   Today is a day to just get settled in.  I am writing this from the place we are staying at.  It is a house in the hills of Rincon. 

We are currently resting, surfing the web and we went for a brief walk around the neighborhood. We are going to start calling people and setting some things up to look at (properties) during the week.

 
Short walk vista

I started out my professional career working at Village Inn when I was 16 years old as a busboy. I learned how to clean the tables pick out which cleaners to use and was responsible and timely with all aspects of the job. It paid off. They moved me up to Dishwasher. Eventually I did so well they moved me up to waiter!

From This (not actually me, Im way hotter)

Its much the same as I did for the company I work at now. Just proving oneself can get you places. I started doing some CD production and distribution and now I am working on software engineering projects for 911 and doing software quality testing with no formal education.

For me its all about setting goals and being persistent. I came here not knowing what the vi editor was in unix. Now I can make advanced shell scripts that run at an enterprise level site (have several hundreds servers and several datacenters). Learning new programming languages, learning about system administration, data cabling, fail over philosophy and many many other attributes of computing that I didn’t even know existed a few years ago.

To This (not actually our data center, our cabling is much cleaner)

When I look at where I started it gives me a good sense of pride to know where I am at now. I don’t exactly know what I will do once I get to PR but if the past is any indication I will do whatever it is I set out to do. I’ve never really failed at anything I’ve tried (rentals, carpentry, flying, computers, sports, jobs, etc)

The saying is true. You can do whatever you put your mind to. The part they don’t tell you is that it takes hard work, perseverance and dedication. Most important of all is that you can’t give up. Ever. The best skill that I’ve gained thru all my hard work is that I will do ‘whatever it takes’ to accomplish something.

I feel the same way about our Puerto Rico goal. I’ll do whatever it takes. Sometimes its discouraging to not have already completed this. Cassie and I were talking about it and as it happens to be; we could complete our goal to move to PR today. We could do this pretty easily.

The issue comes from knowing ourselves fairly well. We have realized that we want a challenge out of this. That is what we do, seek out and accomplish challenging goals. We aren’t ready to retire, we want to get to PR and make a difference or a substanial positive impact and have an adventure.

Who knows. I could start out there doing whatever it takes to get by and end up somewhere I never imagined or thought possible asking myself, “How did I get here?”. I ask myself that pretty much daily already, I don’t expect it to change! lol.

To This?

Well, it looks like the budget cuts have indeed cost me my job, but the good news is that I will be able to stay on here at the county doing emergency preparedness (EP) work, specifically working on H1N1 stuff. I have already been trained in that and have been doing translations (English to Spanish) ever since I started here, so it won’t be a major change. I will still be able to work on some of my existing projects and programs as well. However, from what I hear, the money for EP will dry up by July 31, 2010, so Britton and I decided that that would make a good end time to move to Puerto Rico. We would probably need a month or so to get everything all ready for the move and so we are planning an ETA (estimated time of arrival) of September 2010.

Britton says I’m like the girl on the edge; ready to make the jump, but still worried

None of this is written in stone, but at least it gives us a working plan. Before we go, we have a few goals that we want to accomplish that we believe are feasible in that time frame:

1) Pay off one of our properties. Britton is very much about security in risk (and I am too, to an extent) and doesn’t want to see all that we have worked toward thus far just lost. This way, he figures, if we have to come back with our tails between our legs we’ll always have a house that we can live in for free.

2) Save up enough for the transition to be able to buy furniture, a vehicle and other necessities. We are not too sure how much this needs to be as we’ve never moved so far away. For those of you who have made a life changing move, what do you recommend? How much do used cars cost in PR? We heard they are about $2,000 more than in the mainland.

3) Find a place to live in Puerto Rico. We would like to go down there again some time this winter with the clear intention of finding a place, putting in an offer and closing (not sure if that would be one or two trips).

4) Find jobs. This is really open for interpretation. This could mean working remote, working on virtual projects (the internet), running a guesthouse and farm and/or one or both of us finding part-time or full-time work there. We are open to all possibilities. We do know that it will entail us remotely managing our properties in Colorado since we are not planning on selling them (nor do I think we should in this market).

We don’t know what will happen in the future, but who does, really? We can’t be afraid to live. It is exciting and fun, and darling, do not fear what you don’t really know.

I’ve been thinking about risk lately and what it means.

I think it’s different for everyone and rightly so.  I for one take risks that some people don’t just because of my exposure to it.  Take flying for example.  I’d have no problem hopping in a small Cessna and taking off into the sky.  For others who haven’t had the flight experience they wouldn’t do it, it would be too risky.

Then there is financial risk.  Some people have way more experience than I do in the stock market and don’t even flinch when they move a large amount of cash around.  Or gambling, I haven’t ever won anything at a casino so when I see people betting $10 a hand at blackjack I just don’t understand it.  I can’t do that.

We have been thinking about another property in PR.  It’s a bit riskier than what we are used to due to price and the fact that we want to use it to start our own business.  We do have some experience with running our own small businesses and can see possibilities and want to give it a try.  Here is the catch though; give up our comfortable life to do it?   What if everything goes bad?  OMG OMG OMG.  We both have good jobs and the living is fairly easy except for what challenges we hold ourselves to.

I haven’t really ever failed at anything I’ve tried to do in life (except putting down linoleum in the basement which turned out better because we went with tile instead).   So even the things that I have failed at turned out…better.  Isn’t that odd?   I used to think landing at a strange airport with no plans in mind was ‘risky’ but now that I’ve done that (a few times) its no big deal.  Experience helps us feel more comfortable about taking risks.

I want to make a trip out to PR again here in a month or two to look around.  I think that I am ready to expand my experience in life again and become more comfortable with being an entrepreneur.   Besides IF we were to fail just think of how much more experience we would have when we try again!  I am already very comfortable with Puerto Rico due to the fact I’ve been there a few times.   I know what to expect.

I encourage others to comment about any risks you’ve taken and how it turned out in the end.

View of the property

Well we saw that the Lares, Puerto Rico property was back up and listed for sale online.  The price had gone up in the listing by $15,000.  We had gotten our deposit back after a year + of waiting on the title. She was free to try and sell it to another buyer and we are free to look around again.  So it was not a bad thing at all to see it listed.

I decided to call Alwilda just to see how things were going.  I asked her how the title was coming along?  She replied “I have sold the property”.  I was kind of surprised, but knowing how badly she wants to move I was happy for her.  “Bien! Bien!” I said, “When will you be able to move?”.  She said that she is selling the property in June to some Canadians.

There are a few things that struck me odd about that.

I’ve looked up lots of information over this last year and its kind of hard to pin down, but I don’t believe she can sell the property until it is listed in the title registry.  I’ve seen information online that even says  that a notary has to sign for the deed and the first thing they have to do is verify is that the title is properly filed in the registry.  This one isn’t listed, which is why we couldn’t buy it.  Carlos (her lawyer & also a notary AND ex-son in-law) kept telling us that if we paid with cash, then we would be able to buy the property…Yeah….right.  I have a bridge to sell you.

The other odd thing is that she is selling it in June which means to me she hasn’t sold it.  Maybe they are looking into it the same as Cassie and I did?  To visit and make a decision.

I don’t know the people that are buying the property but if they are reading this (they might stumble across this),  be careful.  There are some odd laws in the books down there.   William is the one who owned the entire plot broke off and sold the 25 acres to Alwilda.  William has children who may have legal right to the land when he dies (Spanish inheritance laws).  When we applied for the loan thru the bank, the bank was saying “no way” due to the title issues.  Some of the best advice I received from a realtor was to go thru the big well known institutions and reputable places.  They are protecting themselves in the deal and as a result you get that protection. Which is why even if you have cash to buy something outright its not always the best route.  You lose a lot of protection so you better be sure you know what you’re doing.  That’s my opinion anyway.

Estrella, Alwilda and me, plus Pirulo (the dog)

It’s a beauitful property deep in the mountains of Lares and if we could have bought it legit, I think we would have.  However, I think we are just going to look for a place closer to the beaches and wish Alwida the best of luck.  We do feel like we kind of missed out, but it is probably for the best for both parties.  We will continue to stay in touch with her and visit when we are in Puerto Rico next.