My Summer Vacation

Edit, the very next day: Never mind. See below.

Original Post:

If you listen to Here All Week, you know that I’ve been in Hawaii for the first half of June, shopping for a vacation condo. This project has, as you might imagine, soaked up every ounce of my concentration.

Since 2018 I’ve had a lovely little place in Vegas. It’s nice to have somewhere to stay, and to work, in a city that I visit often. Even during Covid, I went down there three times, just to check on the place and make sure nothing was on fire. And to play a little online poker, of course.

Almost since I bought that place, I have been thinking about getting a similar situation in Hawaii. As a youth, I spent my summers in Florida, and after 30 years in Seattle I dearly miss the sun and the ocean, especially in the winter months.

And a few years ago, I learned that I like Hawaii. Imagine, I conjectured, having a place in Waikiki, so that I wouldn’t have to pay hotel prices and eat at restaurants every time I wanted to come here and swim.

Imagine.

So after three years of planning, I’m back in Hawaii. For the past two weeks I’ve eaten at restaurants and stayed in hotels, while I shopped for a condo of my own. Tourism is slowly opening up as the pandemic grinds to a close, but things here are still a long way from normal. Whatever that is.

I managed to find a hands-down amazing real estate agent, and I did a lot of online research before flying down here. I gave myself five weeks on the ground to find a reasonable place, or to give up until next time. While here, I was also planning to have a bit of a vacation.

Instead, after just one intense and nerve-wracking week of shopping and haggling, I have found a suitable place and made an acceptable offer for it. After another few days, I’m flying home. After the inspection, which happens (as of this writing) tomorrow, there’s really nothing else to do here until I can actually get the keys.

My new place is a tiny little compromise of a condo, just barely inside my budget, with a hallway that thinks it is a kitchen, and a lanai that thinks it’s an entire extra room. I don’t know what lurking issues it might have, because the inspection is tomorrow. But overall the place seems just good enough to suit my needs. These are basically a place to sleep, a place to write, and a short walk to the beach.

Now that I’ve found the place, I get just a few days of almost-vacation. Yesterday I went to the zoo. Today I’m walking down to that beach I’m so fond of. When I get home, I’ll take stock of the game design situation, which I’ve sorely neglected during the condo hunt.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t seen it already, please check out my in-depth new video about graphic design for prototypes. And please catch up on Here All Week. This week’s fake ad was so funny we almost couldn’t read it

Update, literally 24 hours later:

So, I wrote the above blog post before the inspection. Turns out, and this will surprise no one, the reason that this place was affordable was that it needs a ton of work. The fact that they used self-adhesive hooks instead of proper handles on the kitchen cabinets should have been a hint that they didn’t really keep the place up. But I’m not one for hints, I guess.

Every shutoff valve in this place, kitchen and bathroom both, is either frozen open or frozen shut. The toilet leaks at the floor. The shower leaks at the wall. If you turn the kitchen tap on, you can’t turn it off again. And it has all the problems that result from leaks: soft, puffy drywall, moldy patches under the sink, and evidence of bugs.

“We spray four times a year. We’re pretty good about that.” Yep.

When I got to the apartment to meet with the inspector yesterday, he immediately pointed at the kitchen faucet and said “don’t touch that.” We then went on a magical mystery tour of reasons that this place hasn’t been rented out in twelve months. Or, perhaps, the results of same.

Shortly afterward, I began reevaluating this entire plan. I do love the weather here in Hawaii. But I probably don’t need the hassle (or the expense) of stripping a new condo back to the studs before I can even move in. A vacation spot is supposed to make my job easier, not become another one.

The fact is that my budget is just too low. The condos I can afford aren’t worth the headache, and that’s assuming they aren’t secretly more expensive, like this one. With a rough estimate of the repairs, it’s well outside my budget.

So now I’m heading home empty-handed, at least for this trip, and that might just work out for the best. I’ll keep watching the listings but my best approach to Hawaii might just be to leave the upkeep to the hotels.

Next stop: back to the grind in Seattle.

A strange creature from the Honolulu Zoo