I have been having fun building up the inmuebles section of the coffeesig.com website. I have roughed in the first apartment building we are selling and put this cool picture of Lynn and I together for the “team” biographies. We need a ton more images and information, but I think it will look pretty cool and be helpful if I maintain it will. I plan to do that.
I have been working on a web site and a document to help us start selling one of our properties in Mexico. Our hope is to use the money to finish our property high on the hill in San Pedro, do the next project, and help pay for our new house build here in Texas. I made huge progress today, finishing the basic infrastructure of a website and a document to give to potential buyers/investors. It was a blast doing these and I think they will be a huge help.
The new house build here in Texas is on the verge of beginning in earnest. Brad has another big project that kicked off this week that is keeping him busy while we finish up the permitting from the city and he continues to negotiate scheduling and pricing with subcontractors. In the meantime, I have been working around the edges of some cost reduction. We were able to find some plumbing fixtures we liked a lot better than what Brad’s regular supplier had available. They are of good quality and the price is a good bit lower, too, so we have made arrangements for Brad to buy them at another place with his contractor discount. I am in the middle of doing the same thing with the appliances we want and have found some significant cost reductions there, too.
Our builder has suppliers with whom he works to provide flooring, plumbing fixtures, drawer and cupboard pulls, etc., etc. These suppliers also provide logistic support in case a kit has a missing or damaged part, to assure parts arrive on the contractor’s schedule and to deal with whatever issue comes up. That has value and is worth some extra cost. That being said, when we met with the plumbing fixture supplier, the design choices he gave us were no where close to what we really wanted. When Lorena and I got home after the meeting, I looked up what we had purchased for our house in Centralia, Washington that we really loved, we found that a package would replaced most or all of what the supplier recommended cost over $3000 less. For that amount of money, we can certainly handle some of the logistics.
I am starting to hear back from the emails I sent to a bunch of particular professors at universities in the region to see if they might entertain the idea of me providing volunteer work on a research question or data set they have as a way to explore whether it would make sense for me to start a PhD program with them. I have heard back from one good prospect at Texas A&M University in College Station who completely got the concept and understood my unusual skill set and proposed educational path. I also heard back from two who were not really interested–I really did appreciate the responses. Finally, there was one from UNT in Denton who said he really did not have a PhD slot for me, but he had a grad student that might be able to use the skills I brought to bear for her dissertation and he would be willing to talk to me about collaborating on that. He did not say anything about using that as a way for us to determine whether I might be a good PhD candidate for him in the future, just that he would be willing to collaborate if the project was right. He either did not read the email closely or was looking for a free resources so I marked that one off my list.
I had pretty much the perfect chair when we lived in Godley, Texas and Oilville, Virginia, but we sold that chair along with the house in Virginia. The chair was a Barcalounger like the one my dad had when I was little. I loved that chair. Now, I have quite a comfortable chair and a wicker ottoman, but it is really not the same. I hope to get a new Barcalounger when we move into the new house, God willing. In the meantime, I have a great setup with a place to put my drink, an overhead lamp, and a window with a nice view while we wait for that.
Not much to say other than everything I have going so far works great. Next step is to be able to create a calibration from scratch.
I have been to a lot of graduation ceremonies, but I have seen absolutely none that surpass those of University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The guy in the left in the photo is Dr. John Stranzl. He just finished his degree under the tutelage of the guy on the right, Dr. Troy Gilmore, who also served as my PhD advisor. This has been a labor of love for all three of us–we hope and expect to continue working together on GRIME Lab projects. These are two of my very best friends in the world. Lorena and I are watching the live stream of the graduation with great joy. We are all very proud of John.
I sent out four emails to Experimental Psychology PhD programs over the last couple of days. The one sent yesterday was to Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas which is close enough so I could attend in-person. That is attractive to me as I am interested in participating in the community and that is not impossible, but harder remotely. I wrote to two additional schools in Texas, Texas Tech in Lubbock and East Texas A&M University in Commerce. It would be possible to drive to those schools a couple times per semester so that would not be a bad compromise if the program and professor is the right match. The last was at University of Alabama Huntsville because it seemed like a very good match with my skill set. I am hoping for a quick answer to get the ball rolling with one or two of them although I am really in no hurry to matriculate.
I am not sure anyone will be interested in taking me on in Experimental Psychology, but I definitely am interested and believe I have a research skill set that could be attractive to the right professor. If I cannot find the right program, I will reset my expectations and look for another field that is fundamentally different than my academic background, but that could benefit from the tools and experience I have to offer.
I have been using AI to explore ideas about an auxiliary building to be used as a pottery atelier for Lorena. After several fits and starts, discussions with Brad, and advise from Lorena we have come up with the building on the right. We would need a variance from the City of Granbury to be able to build something this tall, about 10′ higher than the code currently allows for auxiliary buildings in the Historic Overlay District, but it fits the surrounding architecture and elevates the neighborhood in such a positive way that we think we have a good chance of getting the variance. It would almost certainly not include the lean-to, so we are trying to figure out a way to create the function of the lean-to as a gazebo separate from the building. This would not be built until we have the resources if it gets built at all, two or three years from now. Still, it is fun to consider and plan.
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