Archives for June 2011

Thanks for the emails. I love the love.

What follows is the story and I’ll endeavor to make it an interesting story. It begins when we originally entered into a sales contract around October of 2001. Problems ensued. The seller had built the cabin too close to the property line and there’s a setback requirement. OK, so we abide, as the R/E agent submits a “variance” request to the county (let is slide). This takes a few months. The request comes back not denied, but inapplicable. Turns out the guy built the place over the property line, in one corner. So what you need is not a variance, but a property line adjustment and this is something you work out with the neighbor. Fortunately, the neighbor had built their driveway over our property line or, future property line, I should say. And they were very nice and cooperative.

Still meticulously holding to the sales contract, we noticed the seller that we were willing to undertake that process as well but, as it was early 2000s and R/E was going crazy, the seller decided it was our fault that he built his house over the property line (and, his mother’s ashes were scattered on the property, and, he had cancer and other non-sequiturs), decided to back out of the deal we’d already invested 6 months in, and now the sort of properties we wanted were out of our price range.

I hired a lawyer.

To make a 1 & 1/2 year story short, the seller must not have read or understood anything in the contract we agreed to (reportedly, his girlfriend was a “lawyer”); I had, and after a long process of him ignoring the mediation request (gave up any possibility of collecting attorney fees, if he prevailed), then the arbitration request (now we can file suit), he finally took notice of our notice of imminent filing of suit, per the terms of the contract.

It ended as quickly as it began. The very next weekend we travelled to Arnold, sat across the table with Mike (now dead, succumbed to the cancer), and he only asked if I’d be willing to cover a coupla thou of back taxes and reimburse for the $300 of gas he just put in the tank. I agreed, and he tossed me the key. We closed escrow within a week or two. Upon signing, we made about $80,000 in terms of value appreciation over the term of the dispute.

He literally walked away, leaving everything. He was living on a sailboat the the SF Bay and in the ensuing six weeks we endeavored to sort it all out. We were pleased, and this is what it looked like. But we never finished sorting his shit out. We barely got started. Because…

I burned the place down.

Voicemail, back in San Jose, on my cell upon walking back to the car after a movie: “Mr. Nikoley, this is the Arnold Fire Department. We got a call about 7pm tonight, responded, put out the fire, and have stationed a watch. Please return the call.”

My heart sank. I knew immediately. My parents and I had been there over the weekend, watched a movie before departing the in the early afternoon, but had all remarked how it smelled a little smoky.

Fireplace

If you’ll notice the basket to the lower right, I’d cleared out that area and used it to hold the ashes I cleaned out daily from the wood burning stove. What I failed to notice is that it was not tiled, but bare wood. How dumbfuck is that?

“So now you know The Rest of the Story.” To this day, I’ve never lived down the fuckup with Bea. Use your imagination. “Well, you burned down the cabin…”

We were up early the next morning; Bea, I and my dad loaded into the Hummer and headed up the hill. I had talked to the fireman on the phone. “It’s a very small fire. There’s a bit of damage and the hole is only about 2 feet.” I took stupid comfort, not realizing “he’s a fucking fireman!” What’s a “small fire” to a fireman?

When I stopped the car, got out — and from the driveway could see through the hole and all the way into the upper level — and my dad — who’d gone ahead — came out shaking his head — I got a bit misty eyed. It was devastating, having just spent a year and a half struggling to get the place.

I began calling contractors immediately. The phone still worked, amazingly. One came out, wasn’t interested, but I soon found one who was.

It took almost two years to rebuild: from April of 2002 to December of 2003.

But it tuned out to have constituted my biggest silver lining in the end. I managed every aspect of the design for the rebuild. It took a while because we were dealing with an insurance company based in Florida who, for a $600 fee upon close of escrow, became liable under contract six weeks later for about $170,000. Thems the breaks. The rebuild took about $140,000. The big extra was that as I mentioned, the seller had left everything (including his wedding ring). I was up front with the InsCo: “Look, we just got this place, the previous guy left everything and I don’t want any probs on personal property claims.” Easy; “You own it, so claim it.” Fair enough. We had almost nothing of our own property in there and got $35,000, allowing us to furnish it roughly like a Cabelas.

Cool story, so far?

And so it was that around Christmas, 2003, we got the place back, and far better than we figured we’d ever deserved, only it took nearly four years from the time we first looked at it…and after having looked — and smelled — dozens of stinky cabins over a half dozen 3-hr trips to Arnold — Bea made a few more —  I said to the agent after only a few minutes: let’s go write it up.

And so now, after many years of mutual enjoyment of the place by ourselves only, with family, and with our dearest of friends, we’re ready to make it into a vacation rental.

It’s not that the place is cursed, it’s that it’s mysterious. It reminds me, in a drunken state, of a woman who’s willing to have you, but you’re going to give her everything she she thinks she’s worth for it.

Back in 2005 we took out a 2nd loan on the place for a townhome development property I was working on with some partner investors. By the time we did the architectural and engineering and took it all the way through the stupid dumbfucks at the city council and got it approved, the project was no longer viable. And so, the money we took out of the cabin that should have been replenished well within the 5-year reset period didn’t happen. Consequently, it’s plain stupid to retain the place without any income on it.

Consequently, you, if you’re in California or are planning a trip there, can rent my cabin. Supplemental pics and history, here.

As an international blog this post has nothing to do with marketing, but about telling a personal story. The good news is that within an hour of posting the listing we booked 4 days, then 3 days, and have a tentative for another 4 days.

I kinda morn the fact and realization that had we made it a vacation rental from the beginning it would have long been paid off. But I was so financially fat that it was nothing to leave it sitting dark 10 months out of the year.

You live, you learn and hopefully, you do a bit better the next time around.

I can’t even recall my last post. I know it was while in SoCal last week, and its end, then we went home and within a couple of days, departed — to convert our long time personal and private use mountain cabin into a vacation rental. Many reasons for that and, no fucking need of being boring. Why should you care?

But while I continue to structure and refine the rental listing on the world’s premier listing service, VRBO.com, here’s the adjacent tub of pics I put together. That’s from what it is now, to what it used to be and, on the fire six weeks after acquiring it and that…after a year and a half of legal struggle enforcing a sales contract with the seller who tried to back out, to what it became.

We’ve been enjoying it with special friends, family, and our pets for quite a while.

So that’s what the fuck I’m up to.

I actually have a substantial post in the works, on low carb. Gary Taubes, Don Matesz, Matt “fuck head” Stone will all be featured. I may even touch on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It’s not about macronutrients. It’s about thinking. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I was listening to some tunes the other night. I have long loved Van Morrison but never blogged it, so here goes. My favorite tracks of one my all time favorite complete albums. What I mean by that is that there are but a few albums in my life I’ve ever heard where I like or love every track. What springs to mind? Well, Morrison’s Astral Weeks and Billy Joel’s Piano Man. Two of the best top-to-bottom awesome albums ever laid down on vinyl. No matter how much I hear these albums and the music, I never tire.

My favorite track from the former, Sweet Thing. Sorry, I always want a decent live version and there simply isn’t one. So here’s just the studio version. It’s that good I’ll just do it. You get the rhythm and lyrics and if you know what you’re listening to, amazing strings and flute. Love it.

So there you go and why not just go?

Shifting gears…like…totally, Michael Jackson. I miss the dysfunctional deviant. A lot, sometimes, especially when my wife hijacks my wireless stream and puts on her various collections usually heavy with Mraz, Jack Johnson (whom I really dig) and the Jackson, i.e., the Jackson who made the name “Michael” into a metaphor. Shit, Michael d’Angelo (Michelangelo) didn’t even do that.

I really like a lot of Michael’s music, actually, if not just for the funk, or soul of it, just the pure creativity. He surprised, like James Brown always did. He led, always. Never followed.

Sometime after his sad and tragic death, I blogged about my favorite song & performance of his, Dirty Diana. Just now, it’s Earth Song which I was reminded of today and perhaps my second favorite but all the while recognizing that he was a masterful creator who always and always stood out which, is about the best thing you can do for yourself in this one and only of your one and only life. This is not my typical, but it’s big, and it punches while being at times a little too tender.

Some days I really miss Michael and what he might have continued to create, and always leading the pack.

…But first, some idle food porn. My youngest brother is accomplished as well, though I chastised him for not using a white plate for contrast.

Flank Steak

Click on the image for the hi-res. He describes:

Tagliata of Flank Steak with Arugula and Shaved Parmesan and Grilled Glazed Sweet Potatoes.

So there you go. A very edible dish, I would say. I’d also say that Mike is a great cook. He’s also an accomplished brewmeister of many years, and he cures his own bacon, even.

~~~

What’s weird about blogging is that with the technology nowadays, one often connects with people from the way back, like decades ago…from college and shit, or even before. I often wonder how the rebuilding of bridges long burt is ultimately going to shape society. I’m pretty much a bridge burner. Out with the old, in with the new is what I always say. But…

It’s interesting to me because, way back when, people died only steps away from where they were born, often enough. And then, we migrated — that would be hunter-gatherers — and then we invented ships, plains and trains, and spread like flies over a continental ocean of shit. Perhaps there were letters, but face it, people had nearly no connection to “the old country” and, when Hans retired from the steel mill at 65, and he and the misses went back to the “old country” for a visit, it was, to him, a foreign land.

He had satisfied an urgent curiosity, but he never went back. And he still only talked about what he had always talked about: how much better was the country that he left, than the one he left it for. It’s almost like lovers. And that was always his schtick.

This is merely a couple paras written in contemplation of my own experience over the last couple of years as this blog has gained some attention. A very nice comment, from yesterday; Jasen:

Richard, I discovered your blog in my quest for weightloss and better health. Your site has literaly changed my life. I have enjoyed reading your blog for the past 4 or 5 months now. You are such a natural writer I always wonder why you haven’t written a novel before. We have similar backgrounds. I too was raised fundamental Baptist. I was forced to attend church and Baptist shcools. My parents wanted me to go to Bob Jones University and Study to be a pastor or a missionary. So right out of high school I ran off and joined the U.S. Navy. While I still consider myself a Christian I do not go to church and am not religious. I don’t think God gives a shit if one goes to church or not or even what church. Any way I enjoy your blog and am looking forward to purchasing your book. Because of this site I have lost 30 lbs , I have more energy and I feel like a teenager. Thank you Richard and keep on doing what you do!

But mention this blog to anyone in the “old country” — that’s a metaphor, for you literals out there — and it’s basically a yawn. Absolute and total disinterest. Number of readership doesn’t matter, success stories don’t matter. Relevance is irrelevant.

If you’re not on Good Morning America, Oprah (good riddance), Dr. Phil or whomever other captures unimaginative, canned thought nowadays…toward an analog of common recognition of acceptable discourse or, a death not far from birth (another metaphor, literalists), you don’t matter.

…Unless, you’re Jasen or any of the other increasing numbers of youth and aged who will, and should, let their preceding generations die the death they deserve.

Good riddance.

If there is an unpardonable sin, it surely must be incuriosity.

So what first, the funny or the serious? Coin toss? How about that the funny is shorter and relates to paleo a bit more, and if I might suggest, makes a bit fun of the Whole Foods fetish, and especially so for the super environmentally conscious.

I give you “Whole Foods Parking Lot.” It’s gettin’ real. Laf.

Now on to those who take evolution seriously top to bottom, to include neolithic power structures, including religious ones — having exploited the natural trepidation of a thinking being over the realization of death.

Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, David Wolpe and Bradley Artson debate the fantasy of an afterlife. I’d have said “Mother Goose fantasy,” but that’s just me. Oh, wait, they didn’t even use the word fantasy. Never mind.

I do hold rabbis and intellectual catholic priests in far higher esteem than I do the ignorant charlatans you might get in a debate here, such as some pulpit pounding Baptist preacher who is not even smart enough to actually understand that metaphor is more powerful than the literal in terms of inspiring rational and healthy human behavior.

While this isn’t entirely apropos to what I just claimed, it is nonetheless something I wrote yesterday for my book and serves to illustrate some of the utter absurdity I encountered from the authoritarian religious realm.

The Board Room, Tennessee Temple University: some Saturday morning, spring, 1980

  “Dr.” Lee Roberson, founder, head pastor, shepherd of the flock, and best dressed sat at the head of the table in his dark blue pinstripe, double-breasted suit and asked me to explain myself.
  “We went to LuLu Falls, in the afternoon.”
  “Did you check into the chapel, for services?” he asked, with a piercing look. He’d done this before.
  “Yes, I did, and then left right away.”
  “And you went to LuLu?”
  “Yes.”
  “And what did you find?” he asked, and as with all his questions, knowing the answer already.
  “They tossed me a beer they’d brought along.”
  “Did you bring anything for them?” he asked.
  “Beef jerky.”
  “No alcohol?”
  “No; none.”
  “Why?”
  “Because I didn’t know about the alcohol.”
  “And did you drink it?”
  “Yes.”
  “So, they brought it along, and you yielded to the temptation; is that correct?”
  “Yes.”
  In their view this was essential. My culpability was that of an average sinner tempted by all the things that serve to undermine the authority and concentrated power of those who make being a prison guard in that realm their life’s work.
  After, “Dr.” Dennis Michelson (these Bible schools incestuously bestow honorary doctorates upon each other to prop up the aura and schtick of authority never seriously questioned) speaks up. “We just want our son to be right,” Michelson tells Roberson, relaying the essentials of a conversation he’d had with my mother a day or so after he woke me from a sound sleep at 2am of the night in question. I didn’t take substantial account of the gross insanity I was being subjected to at the time, because I was largely ignorant and, in those days, you did not learn from any varied collection of history and philosophy books. You learned from only one book.
  Squinting to the fluorescent lights from the massive ceiling unit, 2am: “Yes, sir, I’m Richard Nikoley.”
  “Can you come with me?”
  And down we went, to the stairwell at the end of the hall.
  “Were you out at LuLu Falls this afternoon?”
  Yes.”
  “And did you bring a cache of booze?”
  “No.”
  “Don’t jive me, boy!” as he hovers over me and gets in my face, for maximum intimidation. Hi, “Dr.” Micheleson.
  He ran me up, over, down and about, from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. In the end I confessed to the crime. It had been either guys I’d been to the falls with before, or friends who knew my love of the place. It was an easy decision for anyone who knew the ins & outs of a supposed college life: there were no classes this week, only boring indoctrination — something they call a “revival” — and it spans a week.
  We thought we’d not asked for much. We decided to take a day. And they decided to give us hell.

So there you go. You can like and tweet the post, if you like. I won’t mind.

It’s no secret that my blogging is decidedly “off.”

There are paleo bloggers out there kicking my ass in terms of much that matters: diet lifestyle, published studies, and even considering quotidian news media bullshit — my own forte.

I remain resolute, in that I have done this long enough; and its time to do something else while only blogging about the stuff & shit I really care about (…and I have to blog about paleo coming in last of 20, for diets). So, a couple of months back, I wrote a post about doing a book. Of course, nothing does — nor necessarily should — go off as planned.

The good news is that I’m finally writing in earnest after some months of reflection: passionate, captivated, and can think of almost nothing else. I’ve become absorbed in the subject, writing an average of 2-3k words per day, towards a goal of about 100,000. It’s coming surprisingly easy to me. That was essential.

It’s a memoir spanning countries and continents. It’s about what I learned during my 20s being a “Back Door Man” over three — and a very short-term fourth, resulting in the single pregnancy I know about — relationships with women who were with others. There’s slight overlappage, but not on the same continent. Other than the occasional “fling,” from the age of about 22 to 32, I maintained non-exclusive sexual relationships with single women in various degree of relationship with other guys. If you reflect on that, you might begin to understand what kind of perspective that gave me, given this was nearly my whole experience with women in a serious context. For, it was at the very beginning and all I had ever known sexually (I was a virgin until 21). …And if you think women are somehow naturally monogamous, you might wonder what a woman might be like who’ll sooner fuck you on a Sunday morning instead of go to church — outcompeting God; that’s what I call it. They exist. And later, they may raise a family. And it’s often a good family.

I’m having a blast, so just checking in with idle and, not-so-idle, thoughts…always putting it down in a way that must certainly shock someone into realizing that they may have been living someone else’s values forever, and not their own.

Or, the deeper problem: that the person living and pursuing someone else’s values likely has none much of their own — values they themselves forged from their own mind, experience, and judgment.

The men don’t know,
But the little girls understand.
Well, all you people there tryin’ to sleep,
I’m out there making it my midnight treat — yea,
‘Cause I’m a back door man.
— The Doors

Update: I almost forgot. The story in iteelf is only half the book. The rest is my reflection on the religious baggage that I ultimately dumped, but had profound power over me even as I was violating its tenets. I’ll save the political baggage for a subsequent book and the diet and paleo for the last.