biggerboat's building boondoggle blog

My wife and I have decided against raising our house, even if we get the grant.

The houses being raised around us seem to be going at a snail's pace. Not one has been finished. We talked to one homeowner that started before the flood even happened. No work has been done for months. Turns out the contractor never got a permit. He's one of the bigger contractors around but it seems he might be a bit shady.

We had already made the decision before we found that out, though. We just don't have enough details on what the government pays for. I suspect it is just to raise the home, not finish everything. There's a lot of other work that has to be done like sealing up the garage, some sort of deck, making the bottom look presentable, etc. I'm not sure they pay for all of that.

The other issue is to get this done you have to deal with the federal government AND the state government. They choose the contractor and manage everything so any snafus and you have to wait for the slow wheels of bureaucracy to work things out. Not only that, but the state of things now is FEMA money could get pulled at the whim of the idiot in charge.

Not only that, but I'm not really sure I want to live in a raised house. I really like our house the way it is. I don't want to climb stairs or get in an elevator. I'm not sure a raised view would be better than what we see looking out our back windows now.

Anyway, we've pretty much decided not to do it.

doge hasn't stopped the siphoning efforts quite yet
please be patient comrade

hehe

I've gotten feedback from my sister on the first book and my wife has finished the book as well. I'll be tidying it up based on their recs and hopefully get this thing on amazon soon.

I've started on another book. I have to say, my motivation is lagging. I'm not sure if it's because I have a writing hangover or I'm not sure about the story or what. Just not motivated. But, I'm making sure I put some words down every day.

mind sharing your rough outline thoughts on the second effort?

Why are you writing a book if you aren't motivated? I mean, it's not like it's your job or anything like that.

A related question: is it the sort of thing you can do here & there in your retirement, or does it need to be treated like a job?

the answer likely wrapped up in multiple layers of soft low-cal filo dough

So, to answer the first question, my second book is a sort of crime novel with a few twists. I haven't completely hashed it all out which leads me to answer the next few questions.

I've had this story rolling around in my head for several years. I started to write a screenplay but nobody reads those so I decided to just write a book.

I don't think I'm as motivated as I was on the last one for a couple reasons. First, it isn't as personal as the first. Second, I don't have the whole story in my head yet. But I force myself to write because I've learned once I start putting things down on paper, the ideas flow much better. I just have to do something even if I'm not completely into it. Once plotlines get a little clearer in my head, it's a lot easier to do the actual writing. Sort of a circular thing I guess.

Why do this at all? Dunno. Makes me think I'm actually doing something instead of just sitting on my ass watching the business channel all day.

It's gonna be a lot harder now that my wife is home, though.

Would not have put you on a Fox Business watcher. 😉

Cnbc

What will change in terms of writing your book when your wife is home?

I can't imagine (well I can) having any news channel on all day. It sounds like one of the worst ways to spend my life. Although I do waste tons of time on the internet randomly clicking, but I still think I "enjoy" that more.

You could go for long walks, try meditation, do more reading. Literally anything seems more productive than watching "business". I guess the caveat is if your ability to do your job is directly impacted (e.g. you're a day trader or whatever)...which is very few jobs imo.

Fyi it's fine if you somehow enjoy watching cnbc all day I guess. Less okay if you somehow enjoy watching fox news all day. I can barely imagine enjoying life in either scenario though.

apologies for inturrupting for a second to explain by pointing out a self quote
how many of these references might you find ny times style if only you had a bigger boat:

Julie McCoy
Hervé Villechaize
the boss of CNBC
Mr. Roarke
Love Boat
Lauren Tewes
Isaac was a good bar tender and also eleventh generation removed from Noah
Fantasy Island
Epstein was Murdered

The business channel is "on" all day, but I don't sit and watch it all day. I generally watch the market opening, and peek at what the market is doing randomly through the day. I spend an hour or so every day researching and looking at charts. A good part of what we live off of comes from investments and I actively manage them. I consider that somewhat of a part time job.

I still hit the gym and exercise every day. I still DL, bench and squat - hehe. Just not as much weight as I used to. Getting old.

The great thing about retirement is you can do anything you want (for the most part) whenever you want. I spend most of my day either doing little house projects, working in the yard, or writing.

Weekends are fishing and working in the yard.

The as for my writing and my wife, I'm not sure yet. I don't do well when I get interrupted but it looks like she will be busy enough that that won't happen a lot. We'll see.

Sounds nice, especially the lifting 👍.

I'm not going to get into investing much but from my understanding/opinion, actively managing things may be a waste of time vs. coming up with a portfolio mix that fits what you need best and then investing accordingly with low fees and then basically doing nothing.

I completely disagree.

I admit I tried daytrading for a while and I learned I'm not very good at it. But there are people that are extremely good at it and do quite well.

I'm happy with what I've done with our portfolios. I do have the bulk of our 401k/ira money in funds but I trade a portion of both. Our taxable accounts are all about income. Quite a bit are in bonds that I don't touch but a lot are in dividend stocks. I trade around them and have been able to increase our monthly income and the overall value of the portfolio.

I pick my spots and I'm very patient.

Forgot to post this. We went fishing last weekend. We caught a ton of fish but almost every one was eaten by a shark. I pulled out my heavy rig and hooked a couple. It's not my favorite thing to reel up one of these but whatever.

Five years ago we rarely encountered sharks eating our fish. But they showed up in big numbers last year and they seem to be everywhere now. We're lucky to get 10% of our fish to the boat now.

But the highlight of our trip came in the afternoon. We spotted some sort of commotion about 1/4 mile away. We figured it was bonita or tuna feeding, then we thought it was dolphins. As we got closer we could see whatever it was was huge.

Whale shark!!!!!

This is the first one we've ever seen out there. It was quite an experience. The shark is as big as our boat. They carry an entire ecosystem with them - fish all around it. They don't move too fast so we got some really close looks at it. It finally got tired of us following it around but I have to say it was awesome while it lasted.

Do you try to get the hook out of the big guy's mouth or do you just have to cut the line?

Yes, some people are. But any 1 person is likely to be a big dog - just like with poker, sportsbetting, etc. And the people who do very well likely spend quite a bit of time on it.

Yes, I do remember you mentioning this in the past, which is great. Hopefully it's worthwhile and as good or better than a paid service can do. Although you seem to derive some satisfaction/pleasure out of it so that shouldn't be dismissed either.

Cut the line.

Hehe nice. One of my favorite movies. I like the scene where he's looking at the reel and it slowly clicks out line.

Interesting (to me at least) recent Frontline about hurricane Helene. It focused on North Carolina for the most part but they talked a lot about rebuilding after the disaster. There's a political contingent that would like to implement regulations that at least try to make future structures more storm-proof. We have a lot of that here. But, there's also pushback that says the government shouldn't be telling anyone what they can do with their own land.

Going through this I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I know a lot of folks that, because of the 50% rule, will be forced to either shell out a ton of money to rebuild or sell if they cannot afford to rebuild. On the other side, rebuilding houses that will get destroyed every time a storm comes around seems somewhat shortsighted.

I also wonder what danger crappy buildings post for their neighbors.