Completed my third DVD project

I completed my third DVD project in time for the Easter weekend, as planned. I made one version for J's brother and one for my parents. I didn't get to give J's brother the copy I made for him - I didn't see him since he was working all weekend (though I did get to spend time with his kids - we took them swimming).

As for the one I made for my parents - they didn't even want to watch it. Despite the fact that J and I have been engaged now for about two months, my parents don't appear at all interested in our relationship, or in our wedding plans, or in knowing anything about her family. This seems just plain rude to me, and J does not feel welcomed in our family.

Will questionnaire - follow up

I called the lawyer today to find out about the will questionnaire. They said to fill out as much as I can and that some categories may not apply. With this bit of information in hand, I can no longer use this questionnaire as an excuse for not going forward. Therefore, I am setting a new target - to complete as much of the questionnaire as I can and send it to the lawyer's office by the end of this week.

From Conflict Management to Negotiation

My basement unit tenant and I have agreed to a new lease. The terms - $650 plus 40% utilities, 12 month lease, plus the conditions I mentioned in my previous post. Next I'll have to write up the new lease and get all the required signatures (his and mine). The new terms means my net cash flow from this propery will decrease a little.

However, there are a couple of things I can do to compensate for that. The way my mortgage was set up when I purchased the property, the bank is withdrawing an amount for property taxes along with my regular mortgage payments, and supposedly making my property tax payments for me. I figure they're taking out about $50 more per month than what my property tax payments should be. One of my tasks then will be to tell the bank I will make the property tax payments myself.

Another thing I can do to control my costs is to cancel the water softener contract. I originally put this in place several months ago when I had a hot water discolouration problem. At the time I had believed this would solve the problem. Well in retrospect, it didn't solve the problem. Replacing the water tank solved the problem (See Out of the hot water). Therefore, although I'm sure having a water softener can be a good thing, I do not strictly need one. Because I had signed up for a two year rental contract for the softener, I got a deal where I get the first six months for $6/month. The six month period has not ended yet, so I'm not paying the full rental price yet. I'll need to find out whether there will be any cancellation penalties for early cancellation. Before I cancel it, I'll give my main-level tenant the option of taking over the payments if she wants, since she could potentially benefit from it.

This is one of the advantages of investing in real estate, as opposed to say, stocks, or mutual funds - flexibility. Even though my rental income is down, I can make certain business decisions that will have a direct impact on my investment performance.

Pride on the big screen

As I mentioned previously, J's birthday was last week and one part of our celebration was watching The Princess Bride. We watched it on a large screen projection tv in a private screening room that we booked for the occasion. The facility was pretty nice and had good quality equipment, so we went back the next day to watch a video (The Bourne Identity). I also brought our home video DVD to watch again.

When I saw our video up on the large screen, I felt so proud. This was my work I was seeing, the result of my effort. It had started out as just an idea, and became this tangible work I was seeing.

Seeing it on the big screen was an awesome feeling. It looked good and sounded good.

Conflict Management 101

I received an email from one of my tenants last week, complaining about noise from another tenant, says she can't live like this and is considering "other options". Complainant - she is in her fourties, has two young children, lives on main level of semi-detached house, on a two-year lease. Complainee - he is in his early twenties, single, no kids, lives in the basement of same house, on a six month lease. What to do?

First thought, let the guy in the basement go after his lease is up, which is soon. Then I have to find another tenant to replace him, and pay the commission. That will put a small bruise in the pocketbook, but it will heal quickly, and may get me some peace of mind. I don't enjoy getting messages from tenants saying they "can't live like this".

A little bit of research turns up this fact - I won't be able to get the rent that he is currently paying in the current market. This gives me some motivation to consider alternate solutions. Plus, there's no guarantee that my main level tenant will get along with a new tenant either.

Second thought - let the tenant on the main level out of her lease. It may be easier to find someone for the main level than for the basement unit.

Suggestion from my advisors - talk to the guy, find out what his plans are. Does he want to stay in the unit, does he want to move out?

So I talk to him, and he says he'd like to stay but can't afford to unless I drop the rent. His current rent is $825 inclusive; he is looking for a price in the range $600-$650, and he expects that in this range, it wouldn't be inclusive. So now the amount of rent is no longer a factor in making a decision. All it hinges on now, is whether the two tenants will get along. I asked him, if I lower his rent, would he be able to accept a few conditions in our new lease:

1. No noise after 10:00pm on weeknights.
2. If there continue to be noise complaints against him then he will agree to leave on 60 days notice.

He said he is okay with that. I told him I'll be making a decision in the next day or two - and that's where this stands right now.

Note of encouragement

Here is a message I received from my sister, after she read my post A step forward towards writing my novel. (I have her permission to quote it here).

Hey, I'm touched! Merry Christmas and much success with your novel writing! Its amazing how one small act of kindness or thoughtfulness towards another can snowball into something incredibly fantastic! I am absolutely thrilled!

Today was Day 12 of my 350 words/day writing blitz. I'm starting to slow down a bit. When I started, I was averaging about 500 words/day. The last few days my average has been down, just over 350 words. That's alright, I was above target to start with. As long as it stays over 350.

I wasn't sure when I started, if I'd be able to come up with 350 words each day towards my story. Now, I'm finding that 350 words is not a problem. I think coming up with 1000 words would not be a problem. What is the problem, is having the time in the day to do it.

As you wish

It was J's birthday this weekend. I gave her a copy of The Princess Bride on DVD. She had never seen the Princess Bride, so all those times that she asked me to do something I really didn't want to do to which I answered As you wish - the significance of that was lost on her.

We watched this movie together on a large screen projection TV. It got to the part where the narrator explains that when Wesley says As you wish, he really means I love you. J says, "Where have I heard that before?" Then she remembers - "Oh, I've heard you say As you wish to me."

It was a moment. For everything else - there's Mastercard.

Wills or Won'ts

Well, that was a rather bold statement I made in my previous post, Where there's a will. Then again, boldness is part of my Life Purpose Statement.

I did take action this week, like I said I would. The action I took was that I called the lawyer I will be using for my will. He had sent me a questionnaire several months ago. It's a long questionnaire with many pages and many questions. To tell the truth, I got intimidated by it, and that's why I put it off for so long.

Then I started wondering if I needed to fill out the whole thing. I had a vague impression of the lawyer telling me to fill in only the demographic information. Had he really told me that, or had I just imagined it? That's what I called him about, to ask how much of it I needed to answer in order to get the ball rolling.

For my effort, I was rewarded with a recorded message informing me that he is on vacation until March 28. Doh!

Where there's a will...

Back in my university days, there was a lecturer who had some interesting sayings. One of his sayings was Where there's a will, there's a relative.

One of my goals that's been on my plate for a while, is to write my will. I've been putting this off for a couple of years. Certainly this goal is nowhere near as exciting as getting engaged, or writing a song, or writing a book. But having a will done is important nevertheless.

I am hereby making a committment to start moving on this THIS WEEK. There - now my promise is in writing for the whole world to see, as God is my witness.

Thy Will be done.

Received Song Assessment feedback for Isabella and Detours

I received feedback for Isabella and Detours from the Song Assessment Service this week. (I had submitted these in December; see Song Assessments - Isabella and Detours). The assessor noted that I hadn't included the lyric sheets - I don't know how that happened because I was certain I had sent them along with my application.

He commented that the vocals were too low in the mix. Without the lyric sheet he couldn't follow or comment on the lyrics. He also commented on the lack of structure - no bridge or chorus, and that Isabella was too short - about a minute long.

He made mention of the "poor" packaging - I hadn't created a label for the CD I submitted, just handwrote the track names on the CD with a felt tipped marker.

He made a note that I can resubmit my tracks if I enclose the lyric sheets. I don't know if that means I'll have to pay another assessment fee. I'll have to look into it and decide if I will resubmit.

To date, I have brought two versions of Friday Nights at The Wedge to Date With a Tape, and sent Isabella and Detours to the Song Assessment Service. I'll have to digest the feedback I've received from all of these reviews and decide what my next step will be.

Writing 350 words a day

When I wrote in my previous post, A step forward towards writing my novel, about writing 350 words a day, it was just an idea I had. It was not something I had intended to actually start doing. Not until some undetermined time in the future when I would decide that I was ready to start writing my book.

But I couldn't resist the challenge. It was just on my mind so much, I just had to see if I could do it. See if I could write 350 words. The equivalent, by my calculations, of one page of a paperback novel, per day.

There's a scene for Mission Dawn, called Arjay's Reversal, that I've been trying to write. I've been stuck on it for a while. So during my "writing blitz" I focused on some of the questions I need to ask myself, questions I need to answer, in order to be able to complete this scene satisfactorily.

I found that I was able to write around 360 words easily. It took no effort, only discipline to do it. Having exceeded my original target of 350 words, I decided to press on, to keep writing. I got to around 530 words by the time I put it aside for the day. I think I could have done more if I had more time to spend on it. Did I say a thousand words a day sounds like a lot? Maybe it's not as big as I thought it would be.

I'm going to keep up this exercise for the next few weeks. My target is 350 words a day, five days a week. When I'm ready, I'll set myself a new target of 1000 words a day.

Got to keep building those "writing muscles".

A step forward towards writing my novel

I bought a book on the weekend, called The Idiots Guide to Writing a Novel. Actually I charged it to the gift certificate my sister gave me for Christmas. Therefore, the book is technically a Christmas present from my sister. Thanks, sis.

I wrote in my first post in this blog, The Written Word, that one of my life goals is to write a book. Picking up this book is the first tangible step towards my goal.

The book suggests a writing exercise - to write three pages a day every day. My first reaction was "Whew - that sounds like a lot". I did an eyeball check of a paperback novel I'm currently reading, and estimated that there were about 350 words on my sample page. Three pages would then be about a thousand words. Every day. Yikes! That still sounds like a lot!

I bet if I take baby steps, I could do it though. My first baby step would be to write 350 words a day for 5 days a week for about two to four weeks. I'm already writing a fraction of that through my journalling and my blogging. This step would only require that I notch that up a little. That, and keep track of my daily word count.

By the way, the preceding paragraphs total up to 212 words.

Slicing salami

One technique I use when working on a large project, especially on a personal project, is what I call the Salami Slice technique. The amount of time I have to work on my personal projects is sometimes limited. I try to make sure that every day, I get at least one thing done, no matter how small, towards my goal.

A project I have been working on for the last two weeks is my third DVD project. This project is to make a DVD for my parents and for J's brother. I want to put the same videos on it that I put on the DVD I made for J's mother, except I want to update them a bit. I want to touch up some of the images on the Christmas video, for example, and I want to replace the images that I had originally used of my parents, to other photos of my parents that are more thematically appropriate.

Every day I try to cut off another slice of that salami. J and I are planning to visit my parents on the 27th, so my target is to have this project complete by then.